ATDTDA (3) Dynamitic mania, 80-86

[Paul Mackin]

On Feb 27, 2007, at 6:00 AM, Tore Rye Andersen wrote:

> Monte:
>
>> The discussion of how and where to strike at the railroad,  
>> blending into
>> Webb's anger "like a kid about to cry" at  _provocateur_ attacks  
>> arranged
>> "not by Anarchists but by the owners themselves," opens a can of  
>> worms, of ends and means, of justifications and smoke clouds  
>> tinged with blood, that will be with us throughout the book.
>
> It is indeed a can of fat, wriggling and blind worms that is opened  
> here. Is dynamite a valid means for the end of an Anarchist Utopia,  
> especially when the wrong people have an annoying way of getting in  
> the way of explosions? Webb has clearly given this issue some thought:
>
> "The tricky patch, it had seemed to Webb for a while now, came in  
> choosing the targets, it being hard enough just to find time to  
> think any of it through, under the daily burdens of duty and hard  
> labor and, more often than you'd think, grief. Lord knew that the  
> owners and mine managers deserved to be blown up, except that they  
> had learned to keep extra protection around them - not that going  
> after their property, like factories or mines, was that much better  
> of an idea, for, given the nature of corporate greed, those places  
> would usually be working three shifts, with the folks most likely  
> to end up dying being miners, including children working as nippers  
> and swampers - the same folks who die when the army comes charging  
> in." (84-85)
>
> We can easily agree with Webb here that bombing innocent children  
> to oblivion is not a good idea, but can we also agree with him that  
> "the owners and mine managers deserved to be blown up"? Webb  
> clearly thinks so, but does the author of AtD think the same? A  
> very similar discussion takes place on p. 922, where Ewball Oust  
> stresses the importance of going after the right people:
>
> "After a while they got into a discussion about Anarchists and  
> their reputation for rude behavior, such as rolling bombs at people  
> they haven't been introduced to.
> "There's plenty of folks who deserve being blown up, to be sure,"  
> opined Ewball, "but they've got to be gone after in a professional  
> way, anything else is being just like them, slaughterin the  
> innocent, when what we need is more slaughterin of the guilty. Who  
> gave the orders, who carried 'em out, exact names and whereabouts -  
> and then go get 'em. That's be just honest soldiering."
>
> Ewball's "to be sure" here mirrors the "Lord knew" in the previous  
> quote: Both Webb and Ewball find it self-evident that there are  
> people that deserve to be blown up, and the narrator doesn't  
> question their assumptions in any explicit manner. He just lets  
> them fly by, so to speak, but should we as readers do the same? Do  
> we *really* need, as Ewball argues, "more slaughterin of the  
> guilty"? Should we cheer when Frank blows up a trainload of  
> federales with his máquina loca?:
>
> "The explosion was terrific, shrapnel and parts of men and animals  
> flew everywhere, superheated steam blasting through a million  
> irregular flueways among the moving fragments, a huge ragged  
> hemisphere of gray dust, gone pink with blood, rose and spread, and  
> survivors staggered around in it blinded and coughing  
> miserably." (985)
>
> Is this is explosion really terrific, or should we rather regard it  
> as terrible, and try to listen more closely to those accusing words  
> whispered to Frank by that statue "Victory"/"The Angel" on p. 989 - 
> words Frank never wanted to hear? It's a subtle game Pynchon plays  
> here, perhaps more subtle than anything found in GR. The narrator  
> never explicitly condemns all this dynamitic mania, and if one  
> sympathizes with the Anarchists' quest for freedom it is altogether  
> too easy to refrain from questioning their violent methods and to  
> agree with their assessment that there are several people who  
> "deserve to be blown up." The Pynchon I know wouldn't agree with  
> this assessment, despite his sympathies for outlaws and preterite  
> rebels, but in AtD he leaves it up to the reader to take a stance.  
> Should we agree with Webb and Ewball that we need more slaughterin  
> of the guilty? Should we even grin elatedly along with Flaco as he  
> and Reef are nearly killed in an explosion in a café?:
>
> "Some of these bandoleros," Flaco still grinning, "they don't care  
> who the hell they do this to." (851)
>
> Or should we do what Webb has a hard time finding the time for:  
> should we think things through, and try to consider other  
> viewpoints that are not explicitly stated in AtD, or that are at  
> least hard to hear amid all the happy dynamite blasts of the novel?

Not to be too contrary but I don't  think it's quite correct to think  
of  either the writer or the  reader of a work of fiction like AtD  
as  "agreeing" or "disagreeing" with the actions of a particular  
character in the story.  We're not IN the story ourselves. Let the  
other story characters agree or disagree if they want to.

Of course,  our own views (writer's and reader's) at no time  
completely desert us during that time we are temporarily "residing"  
inside a fictional world. I personally, for any number of reasons,  
don't think I would ever, residing my own  world,   partake in the  
assassination of anyone, no matter how "deserved" and would seldom  
condone such action in others  either.



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