ATDDTA (3): Control issues, Chums, They

[Joseph T]

For several reasons I find myself in serious disagreement , as I did  
the first time around with the argument that VL was written as  
primarily a crtique of the failures of the  left  of the period it  
covers though it functions that way very effectively.  The majority  
of readers will note the failures of the left but seem to see it as a  
delineation of the origins of the culture wars in which Pynchon shows  
the fundamental will to innocence, freedom , family, music, ecstasy  
of the lefties, hippies , back to the landers (along with its  
problematic naivete), and the fundamental racism, colonial violence,  
militarism , exploitation, collusion with criminality, and psycho- 
sexually sick patriarchy of the Reagan right.  The trouble is that  
humane values do not make for effective imperial armies or  
marketplace nirvana.

I don't buy that the historic events were importantly less  
cataclysmic for the period covered in Vineland. They were'nt for the  
Vietnamese, the Salvadorans, The Chileans, or the planet subjected to  
corporate "externalization of costs".

The progressive world view outlined by Dave Monroe( in opposition to  
strict father conserative wv) may be flawed in not according with an  
entropic view of  a dissolving , ephemeral and anarchic universe; but  
I am not convinced that Pynchon is persuaded this way. He poses  
substantial and deeply invested arguments for Karmic Forces, telluric  
forces, and most clearly on VL, M&D and ATD the transforming power of  
human love, and the search for truth/ enlightenment/shambala/ home/  
freedom in a multidimensional universe . Of course he never commits  
fully commits to them but he leaves us with a rather stark choice by  
arguing with equal force against passivity/ pessimism/ blindly  
following orders/ accepting the given paradigm.

I think it is tempting to leave the chums as eternally naive but  I  
think that by the end of the novel they have profoundly changed. They  
have found feminine counterparts. They have become freelancers. They  
have become aware of the potential of betrayal by those who pose as  
the good guy authorities. They have become either a much larger  
reality or a much larger dream.  Thy may remain child like, but they  
are no longer childish, no longer anybody's boys.

About 1/4 of the way into ATD I was seeing the chums as a mediator  
between the fictional/mythical and the real historic , between the  
authorial (giant gasbag) and the muddy and often miserable  reality  
of human life.

About 3/5ths of the way through  I collected my notes and thoughts on  
the Chums and came up with a different picture which seemed to me to  
gain reinforcement in a rather surprising direction from a central  
event re visited (Webb's murder) and  the end of the novel .

I will " share "my notes on the chums  in my next post though I'm  
sure I may get some serious flak for this one. Anyway this is one of  
the most intriguing threads so far in that we seem to be approaching  
larger thematic  issues.

On Feb 16, 2007, at 6:38 PM, Monte Davis wrote:

>
>> FWIW, I'm not sure that the Chums' commanders are
>> not-identified: I think they are 'They' - that blurry and
>> sinister entity that also plays an important part in GR.
>
> Well, sure -- but I'm challenging you/us/me to pay special attention,
> because I think P has raised his game again. He's not just  
> sketching a They
> and letting us filigree our own paranoia over his; he's frequently,
> actively, insistently
>
> (1) drawing our attention to the Chums' ignorance -- and as you  
> say, their
> off-and-on acquiescence in that ignorance
>
> (2) tossing out all kinds of conflicting -- even mutually exclusive --
> claims and clues
>
> (3) And doing it all at a "meta" remove: remember, the sky-ships  
> themselves,
> when we're not actively following them, are quasi-invisible near- 
> fictions
> --e.g. the Inconvenience shadowing Kit across Central Asia, or the
> disputable cause of the fall of the Campanile in Venice:
>
> "...because of the aeronauts' dual citizenship in the realms of the
> quotidian and the ghostly, it was to the _lasagnoni_ that the  
> clarity of
> sight to witness the engagement was granted. To them alone." (254)
>
>  "It was an accident of war," Lindsay insisted. "And I am not so  
> sure we did
> it
> anyway." (257)
>
> So it's not just a question of a They who may or may not be be  
> controlling
> the action, as simplistic, straightforward books like GR or  
> M&D :-). In AtD
> P goes to considerable lengths to raise questions about a They who  
> may or
> may not be controlling the Chums, who from moment to moment may or  
> may not
> have the "access and agency" to control the action on the ground.
>
> I have no answer to my question -- but for me, none of the answers  
> that
> half-worked for P's earlier books comes even close for this one.
>
> Just sayin...
>