ATDTDA (5.1) - The Etienne-Louis Malus

[Carvill John]

Sorry - I guess I was in a Monday Morning Mood when I wrote that!

I certainly didn't meant to suggest that you were 'wrong' or 'silly' to 
suggest that teh Chums are a metaphor for America, I was just resisting that 
reading of Pynchon that suggests his subject is *always *America, even when 
he's piloting an inflatable torpedo along a canal in Bruges.

It's possible that Pynchon does mean the Chums to stand for America, and 
America's role as 'world policeman', with all of the contradictions that 
implies. I just supsect he's aiming at a broader perspective, that maybe teh 
Chums represent something more fundamental, that's in all of us....


>
>I guess I meant "America," more than "Americans."  Aside from
>Pearl Harbor and 9/11, "America,"  the physical territory, has been 
>peculiarly
>distant from the rest of the world.  Not forgetting, of course, all the 
>young Americans
>who've gotten blown to bits fighting America's wars, or the millions of
>lives we've destroyed or tainted in real or proxy wars.  But the post 9/11 
>mentality
>is very much concerned with the idea that "we" are no longer immune from
>the troubles of the rest of the world.  It reminds me of the post-Vietnam 
>pundits
>who kept prattling about how "America" had lost its innocence during the
>war.  Talk of recreating history as fiction ...
>
>Laura
>
>-----Original Message-----
> >From: Carvill John <johncarvill at hotmail.com>
>
> >
> >Laura:
> >>I get the feeling that the Chums are stand-ins for "us" -- Americans
>as a
> >>whole.
>
> >Not so sure about that one. Pynchon's outlook is very much an 
>international
> >one, and attempts to confine him to the subject of America always fall
> >flat...
> >
> >Cheers
> >JC
>

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