Repost: "The Big One"

[Paul Mackin]

On what Robin calls his initial point, I for one do not find anything 
wrong with calling AtD Pynchon's Big One.

It is Big, the biggest, and much of the writing is as good as it gets.

My general view is that somewhere between Lot 49 and GR, Pynchon 
discovered how to write really well, and that skill never lets him down.

I just didn't enjoy reading AtD as much as GR. Maybe GR was more 
sinister (to use Mike's word). For me it was better.

I personally don't GET why everything in P's oeuvre needs to be tied 
together in AtD.

On the topic of Spiritualism or the Metaphysical (in one sense of that 
word) that Robin emphasizes so much, I liked the topic's coverage in GR 
better.

As regards Weissmann, it's true, his code of conduct is a little dicey.

To appreciate W's worth, we readers must assume (for literary purposes 
only I'd advise) a "beyond good and evil" stance.

Weissmann lives by passion, not reason or morality in the Christian sense.

He IS supremely Romantic.

Of course W's romanticism doesn't lie in his ending up in an American 
boardroom.

That anti-romantic outcome is the irony of it all.

I'm being a little heretical I realize, but as Robin sez Pynchon is into 
heresy.

Actually writers HAVE to be heretical. Why else bother.

P.





robinlandseadel at comcast.net wrote:
>          Paul Mackin:
>          I thought we were talking about what the Tarot passage 
>          conveys--not the views of the "far left" (presume you 
>          mean people who blow shit up) or the "fun with the 
>          revolution" left (Abbie Hoffman).
>
> Yes, it does seem like we have traversed quite far from the original
> post and my original intent. 
>
>           Something I have yet to hear mentioned here: 
>           What if “Against the Day “ turns out to be “The Big One”, 
>           the one that ties it all together?
>
> I know that right now and for most of you, that's heresy.
>
>   
(big omissions because the post was getting too lond)
> That's my initial point.
>
> As regards Weissman, for me he is the walking moral black hole
> of GR, I find nothing even vaguely romantic about him. The thought 
> that he, once routinized by "The System", manages to slither his
> way into whatever high-end post he ends up in the states hockets
> just fine into Shell = Nazi. When I read Weissmann's Tarot my 
> reaction is just like my reaction concerning any news involving 
> Karl Rove—"He's really getting away with this shit, isn't he?"
>
> I don't think any of us know where "White Man" ends and "They" begin. 
>
>
>