an opinion on TRP and HJ

[Paul Mackin]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mark Kohut" <markekohut at yahoo.com>
To: "pynchon -l" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Wednesday, July 22, 2009 9:13 AM
Subject: Re: an opinion on TRP and HJ


>
> I'll be difficult today and repeat myself with an attempted syllogism and 
> argument from the text.
>
> A writer, Pynchon, chooses every word, phrase he gets down, yes?
>
> With such as Pynchon, there are many, many 'seemingly offhand' remarks
> that we can wonder why are they there? What did he 'mean' by saying it?.
>
> As Doug M. says we all know it must mean something that Pugnax, a dog, is 
> reading "Princess Casamassima". First, the whole scene could have been 
> left out or, if it is just to characterize Pugnax, be a completely 
> different book....Jules Verne,say. I agree with Doug and wrote in an 
> earlier post
> that I think TRP might have MEANT something subtly interesting when he 
> also wrote
> of Pugnax, "that he usually preferred lurid thrillers about his own 
> species"...Another remark which could not exist in AtD and would not 
> change it substantially........that line might be Pynchon sorta saying, 
> "Princess Casamassima" is
> escapist fiction(!), not James usual penetrating realism........PC is NOT 
> lurid enough.....that James, genius, did NOT however GET the conditions 
> that produced anarchists, and sided, perhaps, way too easily
> with those who were NOT the exploited workers, the starving laborers, the 
> victims of laissez-faire social Darwinism.......

I thought PC's mention early on was to highlight the dilemma faced by those 
pursuing the revolutionary life.

Lenin felt it too.

P