Re: VL-IV (15): Ché For Children, pages 325/327

[Paul Mackin]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Guy Ian Scott Pursey" <g.i.s.pursey at reading.ac.uk>
To: "Paul Mackin" <mackin.paul at gmail.com>; <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Wednesday, April 08, 2009 11:20 AM
Subject: RE: VL-IV (15): Ché For Children, pages 325/327


Interesting discussion.

Paul, could you elaborate a little on what you mean as to why serious 
artists dealing with "what already has happened or could
easily be made to happen" would be reactionary?

Well, I was being a triffle flipant. Taking a big short cut.

If VL, for example, had dealt with the accomplishments or strengths of the 
youth rebellion. or "the sixties" in general,. the effect would have tended 
to be, well, things are pretty OK.  And there were some good things. Civil 
Rights, demos against the war. But that's water under the bridge. Success in 
not good for revolution. The worse the better as they used to say.

Instead Pynchon wisely chose to explore, and quite ingeniously, how youth 
was fatally complicit, for reasons they could neither understand nor 
control,  in sustaining the Power they wanted to rebel against.  Pynchon was 
able to make Drugs as means to youth power a positive, at least at a jocular 
level,  but at the same time quite a negaive as well.

Something of what I had in mind.



 was playing with the idea that what already exists in either its form or 
content is not likely What I meant to convey was that original art should 
not be a reproduction of what already exists in its form or content.








(Apologies if this isn´t plain text - I´m in Spain and can´t work this 
interface out)

Guy

________________________________

De: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org en nombre de Paul Mackin
Enviado el: mié 08/04/2009 15:02
Para: pynchon-l at waste.org
Asunto: Re: VL-IV (15): Ché For Children, pages 325/327




----- Original Message -----
From: "Dave Monroe" <against.the.dave at gmail.com>
To: "Ray Easton" <kraimie at kraimie.net>
Cc: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Wednesday, April 08, 2009 9:31 AM
Subject: Re: VL-IV (15): Ché For Children, pages 325/327


> On Wed, Apr 8, 2009 at 6:16 AM, Ray Easton <kraimie at kraimie.net> wrote:
>
>> What in Vineland, or elsewhere in Pynchon's works for that matter,
>> suggests
>> that there is any form of rebellion that is NOT a dead end?
>
> This may be THE question to ask here.  I susepct that the answer is
> either troubling, or complicated, or both ...

I think it has to do with the function of art.

Serious artists can't very well deal with what already has happened or could
easily be made to happen.

That would be kind of reactionary.

That  "a way out" has not yet been discovered is no reason to stop exploring
possibilities.