AtDDtA(15): He Is Not What He Says He Is

[Dave Monroe]

On 8/12/07, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:

> 3) So, trespassers come from when History, Western "Capitalist" History has
> destroyed the world's resources....they seem to mouth 'truths' that our
> author might agree with, we say.

This in particular is what I'm curious about.  There are at LEAST a
couple/three premonitions of Disaster in AtD (cf. the Cold War in V.,
civil unrest in Lot 49, both in GR, domestic authoritarianism in VL,
perhaps all the aforementioned in M&D), and not just already
historical ones (e.g., Tunguska, The Great War; cf. Fashoda, the Suez
Crisis in V., possibly the Kennedy Assassination in Lot 49, Rex-84 in
VL, and the War between the States in M&D).  One of course is curious
as to Pynchon's personal take on such apocalypticism, serious or
satire? I'd tend to say, both/and ..., but ...

Well, here a not exactly unjustified OR uncharacteristic warning
(famine, resource exhaustion, environmental, economic, even
sociocultural collapse) is borne by a character characterized as
distinctly sinister, and not perhaps JUST by the certainly co-opted,
if not exactly corrupted, Cs o' C (or, at any rate, the in-frame
"author" of their adventures), who indeed tried to co-opt, and perhaps
corrupt, them himself.  Now, back in the, uh, "good" ol' days, I'd
have at LEAST Robt. likely making even a pre-emptive strike on this
issue, but there'd certainly be some discussion, at any rate (so if yr
out there ...) ...