Pynchon's reply

[Robin Landseadel]

On May 18, 2009, at 11:39 AM, Dave Monroe wrote:

> Meanwhile, I not-so-silently await most anyone putting forward an
> actual, if not (attempt at, at least) explanation,  strong hypotheis
> about jsut What's Going On in those Pynchonian texts ...

I think it's got to do  with some of the Illuminati's supply side  
Robber Barons gradually sliding the U.S.A. into the Big Daddy Warbucks  
military/industrial kleptocracy—Standard Oil, P. Bush, I.G. Farben,  
the other Bushes, big awl, aviation, Rocket Science, global  
corporatism. Somehow there's this encryption of the Rothschilds and  
the birth of the CIA in there. I think he's catching and flagging a  
lot of meaningful themes and plot sources in the process.

I take many of these historical citations [sometimes wordplay,  
sometimes direct reference to a person or place] to mean that Pynchon,  
as a library researcher, looked up a lot of his family's histories and  
included those who were involved with or were engaged in the same  
businesses as Pynchon & Co. And he does it without ever actually  
mentioning Pynchon & Co. I see a lot more of that in Against the Day.  
On the other hand, that THE BOMB!!!! thing goes on its own power.  
Nothing like writing instructions for handling explosives in an ICBM  
to force a writer to focus, being sure to include all instructions in  
the correct order, to pay attention to the little things.

I see a lot of THE BOMB!!! in the first three books, not as much in  
Vineland and Mason & Dixon, but the bomb is back in play in Against  
the Day. I don't see OBA as concerned with getting his family's  
history straight [or some sort of literary vengeance] as giving the  
straight dope on all our histories. But his family's history has  
points of coincidence in all his books. For DeMille young fur-hench- 
men can't be rowing.

Oh, you mean with Oedipa? She's over at the Scope, about to find out  
that there's this vast postal conspiracy called