CH 15

[Joseph Tracy]

Not the best hosting job on the Chapter.  I came in with an obscure  
memory of the remainder of the book,  which I just read through a  
couple days ago and saw several errors I had made. On the positive  
side there was an element of the un"spoiled"  view of a first read.  
On the negative side I was misreading Bjornsen's  authenticity in  
divulging information as plausibly sincere. This is clearly the  
intent of Bjornsen (who is as good an actor as Doc or Shasta)    
towards  Doc  and of Pynchon for the reader. He is giving Bigfoot and  
by proxy , whatever there might be of "good cops " room to show some  
humanity and commitment to "liberty and  justice for all" .   In the  
context of the book it is a little like deep throat, or John Meier's   
report of what Hoover said about the RFK killing. It is a leak  that  
acts as a confirming witness of murderous internal corruption . I  
think the idea of the leak is hard to overstate in Pynchon. The  
references leak into history and into our own times, as these leak  
into the fictional world, the books leak into each other and  nothing  
is hermetically sealed and there is no God to explain it, no  
authorial intent that by any critical approach can be pinned down.

I am writing this way because having read the book twice I am finding  
the word pastiche inadequate. There is a level on which this is a  
tightly plotted noir mystery along the lines of Chinatown, but with   
broader political focus. (Crocker Fenway seems a direct nod to Noah  
Cross) I think this layering of styles and forms that coexist and yet  
hold up on their own levels is essential Pynchon. One could easily  
argue that this is  a subtle and widely directed satire of addiction,  
role-playing, fascism posing as freedom, consumerist counter-culture,  
pornography and criminal insanity among other things. And  I find  
that when I focus in on the specifics of a satiric inquiry it is  
usually more substantive than it  at first seems. But is it satire or  
comic book farce or is it is really a serious attempt to expose the  
key corporate and political players in an historic fascist coup.   I  
could go on here about the parallel worlds of the collective  
unconscious and  the coming flood, but my question is whether the oft  
used "pastiche", or "post-modern" may obscure as much as they reveal.  
It is a pastiche but it is also fundamentally unlike other examples  
of that mode of work.

other levels  have to do with classic tensions that we find in P's  
work: paranoia v reality , narrative v entropy, pursuit of justice v  
delusions of purity and parallel worlds , the biosphere v industrial  
technology. Many of these could be threeways instead of dualities and  
I suppose one could get kinkier still, with as Gary Snyder said creek  
music, heart music , the soil of Turtle Island and the beings who  
thereon dwell , one ecosystem under the sun , with joyful  
interpenetration for all.

All of this is just my clever way of avoiding the fact that I really  
don't have much or perhaps anything more to say about  Chapter 15.  
Happy feasting for all those enjoying Thanksgiving, and happy rest,  
reading and relaxing to all .