ATDTDA (3) Dynamitic mania, 80-86

[Chris Broderick]

Well, none of those outlaws that he mentions in the
essay (Dillinger, Jesse James, Rob Roy) were exempt
from acts of violence (whether on innocents or less
than innocents is a judgement call).  And sure,
there's a distinction between outlawry and violence,
but the two are still quite connected.  The outlaws
who don't engage in violence are the exception rather
than the rule (MLK, Gandhi, ???)

-Chris

--- David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:

> The thing is, outlawry is one thing.  Violence is
> quite another.  And
> violence likely to kill a "relatively" innocent
> bystander is evan yet
> another.  Webb understood this, and thus chose to
> bomb objects valued
> by the Owners but not populated by anyone.  Outlawry
> resulting in
> death is pretty clearly sin.
> 
> David Morris
> 
> On 2/27/07, Chris Broderick
> <elsuperfantastico at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > Tore sez:
> >
> > 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.
> >
> > Pynchon's intro to Stone Junction:
> >
> > "IF WE ACCEPT THE NOTION THAT USING POWER AGAINST
> THE powerless is wrong, a clear enough set of
> corollaries begins to emerge. We become able to
> distinguish, as populations (thought not always
> their rulers) have usually been able to do, between
> outlaws and evil-doers, between outlawry and sin.
> [snip]
> >
> > I'd argue that Pynchon (particularly the Pynchon
> of Vineland & AtD) takes all this at face value, and
> would love nothing more than to see the Vibes of the
> world get their comeuppance.  But he is less
> concerned with constructing revenge fantasies,
> though he spends a good deal of the book hanging us
> on our expectations of such acts of revenge. He's
> more concerned with the real challenges, dangers and
> implications of such acts of outlawry.
> 



 
____________________________________________________________________________________
8:00? 8:25? 8:40? Find a flick in no time 
with the Yahoo! Search movie showtime shortcut.
http://tools.search.yahoo.com/shortcuts/#news