Repost: "The Big One"

[Mark Kohut]

As, it seems, the lone contrarian voice, I will risk being wrong again:

There is as much 'moral nuance' in "Against the Day", at least, as in 
almost any writer. 

Presenting such nuances may be one of TRPs deepest themes here, i.e. a vision of life in History that has a fuller range---see Light Over the Ranges---than in any other of his books. 


--- On Sun, 7/13/08, David Payne <dpayne1912 at hotmail.com> wrote:

> From: David Payne <dpayne1912 at hotmail.com>
> Subject: RE: Repost: "The Big One"
> To: malignd at aol.com, pynchon-l at waste.org
> Date: Sunday, July 13, 2008, 4:12 AM
> On Fri, 11 Jul 2008 (17:18:29 -0400), malignd at aol.com wrote:
> 
> <Very little reading into is called for.
> 
> That's funny sh^t, man, but, umm, just for the record,
> when I said "morally flat," I did not mean
> morally void, I meant morally un-nuanced.
> 
> Like, for example, a moral vision that collapses everyone
> into Nazis or Abbie Hoffman--that's morally flat. As is
> a vision that sees Capitalism as the Right for all Wrongs.
> Or a vision that sees Lex Luther as the archnemesis of
> Superman. Or a vision that sees the Jews as the evil that
> must be exterminated by the Supermen.
> 
> Flattening morality is a common trick, practiced by
> revolutionaries (Public Enemy? Bush? ), the status quo
> (Reagan? Bush?), satarists (Bush? Dante?), and simpletons
> (Homer Simpson? Bush?).
> 
> Moral nuance is also a common trick, supposedly practiced
> by con men, lovers, and novelists.
> 
> I am perfectly willing to concede the point (i.e., Pynchon
> creates novels that place characters in a morally-flat
> universe) if faced with a nuanced (or sinister) argument,
> but--my thinking right now--it seems to me that Pynchon
> often flattens morality into good guys vs. bad guys as a
> satirist's (sp? -- one who creates satire?) tool in
> order to issue moral clarity and comic relieve.
> 
> I dig Pynchon, but I do not turn to his novels for solace
> when I feel temptation, a morally gray world tugging me on
> all three sides ... his characters fight the powers that
> be, or they die, or they *are* (gasp!) the powers that be. 
> 
> So till sweet death do us part, may Dog have mercy. But
> don't tell nobody.
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