Pynchon's back catalogue

[Paul Mackin]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Robin Landseadel" <robinlandseadel at comcast.net>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Monday, July 27, 2009 11:44 AM
Subject: Re: Pynchon's back catalogue


> On Jul 27, 2009, at 11:05 AM, Robert Mahnke wrote:
>
>> I take Vineland as being much more about what America's children did
>> to themselves in the 60's, 70's and 80's, than about what was done to
>> them by forces of opression.  The reader buys into the idealization of
>> Frenesi, and then sees what Frenesi did.  It's much easier to say that
>> it was Them, not us, but isn't that the point?
>
> That's one of the points, but not the only point. On a certain level 
> Frenesi's function in the story is much like femme fatale Kathie  Moffat 
> in Jacques Tourneur's "Out of the Past", playing an opportunist  willing 
> to play both sides to serve her own interests. And Against the  Day points 
> just as much as Vineland to the fascist within.
>
> But Vineland's loose clan of activists and misfits were no match for  the 
> fascists without and many of them—Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush,  G. 
> Gordon Liddy—are called out by their names. C.A.M.P. is not  portrayed as 
> some useful mode of maintaining social order either, for  that matter.

Yeah, but the fascists without were mainly backdrop for the fascists within.

The fascist within made a more interesting story.

The fascist without was dog bites man, while the fascist within was man 
bites himself.

I know, it happens everyday.

P