CoL49 (6) Either ... or ...

[Dave Monroe]

On Sat, Jul 11, 2009 at 10:14 AM, <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:

> Goes back to your question of whether the Tristero are sympathetic.  Are they the "THEY who are out to get you" or are they the they who are out to get THEM?  Oedipa thinks they might be " a real alternative to the exitlessness, to the absence of surprise to life, that harrows the head of everybody American you know ..."  There's the idea that anything that's secretive, that's not out in the glaring commercial industrialized light, is somehow sympathetic merely by virtue of being different.
>
> Different from the earlier picture of Tristero as a bunch of murderous grudge-bearing thugs intent on dominating the postal system, if not the world.  Some anti-semites might view Jews this way -- the dual nature of schemers trying to take over banks and governments vs. Holocaust victims (and therefore sympathetic).  In ATD Pynchon has a dual view of the anarchists -- positive, but murderers who blow things up.

---

Well, keep in mind, nearly a century and a half ago now, a Republican
president fought a civil war over, amongst other issues, abolishing
slavery, and leaving the South in the hands of the Democrats--albeit
"State's rights" "Dixiecrats"--for nigh unto the subsequent century
...

Again, what BEYOND "disinheritence" is a distingushing characteristic
of the Tristero, what, if any, continuity does Tristero possess?  And
is there anything historical/political it can be mapped to?  Who are
"the" Tristero @ any given time/place?  If anyone?