IV Meanwhile back at WAMBAM'S offices
Joseph Tracy
brook7 at sover.net
Sun Dec 6 07:37:11 CST 2009
On Dec 6, 2009, at 12:33 AM, Joseph Tracy wrote:
I just want to add another possible way to look at Khalil. Tariq Ali
once wrote "It was the Vietcong guerrilla fighters who really set
the example," he wrote later. "When they showed they could inflict
major defeats on the Americans, people all over the world said, 'if
they can do it to the Americans, we can too'". Perhaps there is a
sense in which Khalil also represents both the Vietnamese Guerillas
and other armed struggles against imperial rule.
>
> On Dec 5, 2009, at 7:39 PM, Mark Kohut wrote:
>
>> They seem to be taking Manson's fear-inducing rep straight, yes?
>> T-shirts with the Manson family in afros an shit??
>>
>> Waiting for the deal to do down..........
>>
>> The we learn who the friends of Glen, of the small arms deal, were:
>> bunch of honky dentists working out of a 'big tooth"
>>
>> "Questions arose, like wtf was going on here, basically", thinks
>> Doc (again).
>>
>> Uh, anyone care to expound on the novel's attitude--if you think
>> one can be spoken of---toward WAMBAM?
> I think the connection to the G Fang is showing that a certain kind
> of militance forces its proponents into the same methods and
> sources of supply both literally and metaphorically as the
> Vigilants, Heroin dealers, CIA and war profiteers. If Khalil is
> sincere he is at best motivated by self defense and the knowledge
> of the violence of the system he opposes, but his plans are as
> stupid and doomed to failure as any of the violent revolutionaries
> that appear in Pynchon's books. Pynchon acknowledges their
> justification and their romantic appeal but dismisses them as
> juvenile fantasists, or opportunistic killers. So what we have is
> either a planted provocateur or a deluded violent revolutionary
> who has already gotten one of his friends killed. He could easily
> represent the beginnings of the Symbionese liberation Army, or the
> beginning of Al Qaeda, or John Hari the FBI plant in the Nation of
> Islam.
>
> Malcom X became most powerful and most threatening to the powers
> as he freed himself from the Nation of Islam, sought to reconcile
> with civil rights leaders and his speeches reached a wider
> audience. His black separatist militancy was never a real threat.
>
> Often the strongest advocates of violence in resistance
> organizations has turned out to be an FBI plant.
>
> I'm going to repost this with some further thoughts on T K's name.
>>
>> And, anyone else---besides me, to hisses and flames---care to
>> suggest the
>> author's attitude?---if you think one is manifested. But in
>> another page
>> we will have greatly complexified the question.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
More information about the Pynchon-l
mailing list