TOO reBEel or naught to reBEel ?

[Paul Mackin]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <kelber at mindspring.com>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Friday, April 10, 2009 11:12 AM
Subject: Re: TOO reBEel or naught to reBEel ?


>I don't think I or anyone else here has expressed some naively optimistic 
>view that if they (lower case) had been more politically aware in the '60s, 
>there would have been some more successful rebellion against THEM, or 
>attributed that view to Pynchon.  The conversation originally arose because 
>someone expressed frustration about the window-breakers and police-fighters 
>in London, and others of us thought such people had their place in "the 
>rebellion" against the powers that be.
>
> If the antiwar movement succeeded in the '60s, it was because of the broad 
> spectrum of people involved.  The mass demos in Washington were clogged 
> with people whose ideology allowed for little more than looking ahead to 
> the next toke or the next piece of ass.  But their physical presence, 
> along with radical activists of various persuasions, helped a fringe 
> movement become a mass movement in the eyes of first the media, then the 
> public, then the politicians.
>
> In terms of Che (not Guevara, but the lingerie-lifting teen-hooker), I 
> think Pynchon looks upon her without judgment and with some fondness and 
> more than a little prurience (he clearly has a thing for teenaged girls). 
> But I don't think he or any of us here would consider her form of 
> rebellion an effective one.  Ultimately, there's never going to be an 
> effective rebellion -- we're not in line for any Nirvana on earth --but 
> informed rebellion is one of the great experiences available for the lucky 
> few on this planet.  It may be that Che finds shoplifting and taking 
> creeps for their money to be a thrilling form of rebellion.  Personally, 
> it's hard for me to believe that Che's life is as thrilling as that of a 
> genuine rebel:  a Wobbly or a Paris Communard.  And the anti-war 
> demonstrations must have been more exhilarating for the SDS activists than 
> the apolitical potheads.  Rebellion for the hell of it is fun, but 
> political awareness can only increase the high (just a gut feelin!
> g here).

A book that was reviewed in the Times a few days ago may throw some doubt on 
the Left lifestyle and the limited satisfactions it affords.
In “When Skateboards Will Be Free,” Mr. Sayrafiezadeh recounts, as if he 
were telling a peculiar bedtime story, the tale of growing up with (and 
without) his parents, ardent members of the Socialist Workers Party. They 
were convinced that social revolution was just around the corner in the 
United States. All they had to do was struggle. And sacrifice. And wait.

Growing up in Brooklyn and Pittsburgh in the 1970s and ’80s, the author was 
a good little revolutionary, at least on the outside. When asked by a friend’s 
father, during the 1979 hostage crisis in Iran, what he thought of the 
situation, the author automatically replied (the caps are his): “I SUPPORT 
THE STRUGGLE OF THE IRANIAN WORKERS AND PEASANTS AGAINST U.S. IMPERIALISM.” 
This is not how you win friends and influence people in Pittsburgh.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/01/books/01garn.html

These people may have had political awareness but remained unaware that 
their struggle and deprivation were going to get them nowhere. Especially 
hard on the children. Reminded me of the earlier Traverses.




>
> Laura
>
> -----Original Message-----
>>From: Ray Easton <kraimie at kraimie.net>
>
>>Certainly Pynchon does not endorse conformity.  And equally certainly,
>>he favors rebellion.  I entirely agree with what Paul has said about
>>this.  And in particular I think the reference to Camus is quite apt
>>(can't recall now who first introduced it).  And the reference you made
>>to Buddhism also seems on the mark.
>>
>>My question was meant to suggest that in several recent posts, the
>>authors are mistakenly attributing to Pynchon their personal political
>>"optimism" (for lack of a better word).   Several posters take the view
>>-- "well, if they had done this, instead of that... if they had marched,
>>instead of smoking dope... if they had studied lefty thought, instead of
>>shoplifting..."   The post to which I am now responding seems at times
>>to adopt such a view.
>>
>>I've no quarrel with such views -- I don't share them, but I have no
>>desire to argue against them.  But I do not see such any such view
>>present in Pynchon's writing.  On the contrary, such a view seems to me
>>distinctly un-Pychonian.
>>
>>Ray
>>
>