ATDTDA - petroleurs, p.19

[David Morris]

I understand your judgement.  I can't say I know yet where Pynchon's
scalpel cuts in this regard yet.  I agree that he doesn't make
simplistic morality tales, and thus the good guys aren't necessarily
guiltless.  But I wouldn't say they are the equivalent of his bad
guys.  And I wouldn't say (at least not yet) that Web reaped his
earned Karma with his being brutally murdered.  But remember, I'm only
at about page 380 right now...

David Morris

On 1/30/07, Monte Davis <monte.davis at verizon.net> wrote:
>
> David Morris:
> >  One might say [Webb] was in love with the crusade and its methods (and thus a bit selfish). Reef on the other hand is mostly moved by guilt
>
> A bit? A *BIT*?!? No, Webb was *epically* selfish  -- in his own way, as selfish as Scarsdale Vibe. (I suspect that's why the book's birefringence brings Kit into uneasy friendship with Fleetwood Vibe, a guilt-motivated double of his own brother. You can run to New Haven, but you can't hide.)
>
> Don't fall for a trap P sets over and over. He gives us plenty of rope to believe Vibe's selfishness is unredeemed because it's all about money <yuk> and power <phooey>, but Webb's is sorta kinda OK because it's In the Cause of the Oppressed <hurrah>.
>
> But I don't think *he* believes that. I think he's as pitiless as Eudora Welty, who wrote in _Losing Battles_: "...there is only one way of depriving the ones you love -- taking your living presence away from theirs... No one alive can ever in honor forget that wrong, which outshines shame, and is not to be forgiven until it has been righted."