AtD: "ICH BIN EIN BERLINER!" (626)

[Kai Frederik Lorentzen]

Flashback to the early 1980s ... Northern Germany, teenagers telling jokes:
What did President Reagan say when he recently visited Hamburg?
"Ich bin ein Hamburger!"
 
re. Pynchon & Kennedy: Unlike other American left-liberals like
Lou Reed ("Most of all I wish I'd forget the day John Kennedy
died"), Pynchon seems to be very critical on Kennedy. In addition
to AtD's --- more or less --- subtile diss on pp. 626-7, there is
a direct reference in the Slow Learner intro: "Modern readers will be,
at least, put off by an unacceptable level of racist, sexist and
proto-Fascist talk throughout this story [that is "Low-lands" - kfl].
(...) The best I can say for it now is that, for its time, it is 
probably authentic enough. John Kennedy's role model James Bond
was about to make his name by kicking third-world people around,
another extension of the boy's adventure tales a lot of us grew 
up reading". Since it seems not really necessary for getting the
message, it must have been a personal need for Pynchon to drop 
Kennedy's name in this context. And the JFK passages in GR
(pp. 65, 682, 688) ooze with aggressive sarcasm. Any thoughts?
 
Kai
 
    
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