Well I just reread Vineland and the news is still bad...

[rich]

been reading the new JFK assassination book by vincent bugliosi--in this day
and age conspiracy is treated quite differently than it did in the 60s and
70s.  conspiracy books like Libra I think do not stand up to Lot 49 which
leaves us hanging upon some sort of revelation. Libra, e.g. though
enignamtic does explicitly postulate the presence of more than one gunman in
dallas in 1963, and its revelations are therefore known and lack any latent
magic as does the Tristero.

I think Pynchon realized he could no longer harp on systems and
conspiracies. much of the gloomy shadiness is somewhat lifted post-GR though
they are far from gone. Vond, Maskelyne, Vibe--they are more men than
anything.

rich



On 6/13/07, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 6/13/07, rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I think there is a reason for that 17 yr gap.  the first three novels
> are so much about systems, their hold on people, means of escaping at
> attempts, discovery, horror, resignation.
>
>
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/11/AR2007061101859.html
>
> We have become political hypochondriacs. We seem eager to declare that
> "the system" has come down with some dread disease, to proclaim that
> an ideological "center" blessed by the heavens no longer exists, and
> woe unto us. An imperfect immigration bill is pulled from the Senate
> floor, and you'd think the Capitol dome had caved in.
>
> It's all nonsense, but it is not harmless nonsense. The tendency to
> blame the system is a convenient way of leaving no one accountable.
> Those who offer this argument can sound sage without having to grapple
> with the specifics of any piece of legislation. There is the unspoken
> assumption that wisdom always lies in the political middle, no matter
> how unsavory the recipe served up by a given group of self-proclaimed
> centrists might be.
>
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