Pynchon's affection

[Tore Rye Andersen]

Peter Petto

>Of course I'm thinking a lot about Pynchon and AtD, and was
>wondering...with all of his emphasis on US culture (and the cultures
>that formed us)...does Pynchon love America? Or perhaps, what is the
>America that Pynchon loves?

Here is Slothrop in GR, just before he dissolves into Nature:

"Yup, still thinking there's a way to get back. He's been changing, sure, 
changing, plucking the albatross of self now and then, idly, half-conscious 
as picking his nose -- but the one ghost-feather his fingers always brush by 
is America. Poor asshole, he can't let her go. She's whispered *love me* too 
often to him in his sleep, vamped insatiably his waking attention with 
come-hitherings, incredible promises. One day -- he can see a day -- he 
might be able finally to say *sorry*, sure and leave her... but not just 
yet. One more try, one more chance, one more deal, one more transfer to a 
hopeful line. Maybe it's just pride. What if there's no place for him in her 
stable any more? If she has turned him out, she'll never explain. Her 
"stallions" have no rights. She is immune to their small, stupid questions. 
She is exactly the Amazon Bitch your fantasies have called her to be." (GR, 
623)

- which probably sums up Pynchon's own attitude pretty accurately. I think 
Pynchon loves the original sense of possibility America afforded, but it 
also seems obvious that he's not too happy about how this original promise 
has been managed. Oedipa's disillusioned "and how had it ever happened here, 
with the chances once so good for diversity?" comes to mind.

Having said that, I think the idea of America is less important to Pynchon 
than to, say, Saul Bellow or Don DeLillo. DeLillo's Underworld opens with 
the words: "He speaks in your voice, American" - a pretty clear indication 
of whom DeLillo is writing for and what his topic is. DeLillo writes about 
America, first and foremost; Pynchon writes about the World, in particular 
the Western World and what is has been doing to the rest of the World. 
America is of course in many ways the culmination of the Western World - the 
terminus of the Westering tendency - and as such it is infinitely important 
to Pynchon. Here is Blicero:

"America *was* the edge of the World. A message for Europe, continent-sized, 
inescapable. Europe had found the site for its Kingdom of Death, that 
special Death the West had invented. Savages had their waste regions, 
Kalaharis, lakes so misty they could not see the other side. But Europe had 
gone deeper -- into obsession, addiction, away from all the savage 
innocences. America was a gift from the invisible powers, a way of 
returning. But Europe refused it. It wasn't Europe's Original Sin -- the 
latest name for that is Modern Analysis -- but it happens that Subsequent 
Sin is harder to atone for.
"In Africa, Asia, Amerindia, Oceania, Europe came and established its order 
of Analysis and Death. What it could not use, it killed or altered. In time 
the death-colonies grew strong enough to break away. But the impulse to 
empire, the mission to propagate death, the structure of it, kept on. Now we 
are in the last phase. American Death has come to occupy Europe. It as 
learned empire from its old metropolis." (722)

Whereas an author like DeLillo is primarily interested in America qua 
America, Pynchon seems to be interested in America as the culmination of the 
historical process described by Blicero: He's interested in what Europe came 
and did to America, and he's interested in what America has subsequently 
been doing to itself, and to the World.

_________________________________________________________________
Ta' på udsalg året rundt på MSN Shopping:  http://shopping.msn.dk  - her 
finder du altid de bedste priser