IVIV (10) page 157

[Joseph Tracy]

On Oct 15, 2009, at 11:21 PM, alice wellintown wrote:

> It's important to remember that we are reading a TV. That is, all of
> the characters are actors or wanna-be actors or were actors or are
> collecting SAG money or aping they favorite star or swagger. They all
> talking like them Tube-headed dudes, those Thanatoids.  This novel, if
> that's what it is, is Pynchon on the Simpsons--a TV Program about TV
> and how TV and biography and history and the reel/real pornographic
> karmic wheel just keeps turning out fortunes for the 500. So, we're
> lookin at TV and people who work on, or for, or at, or in, TV. So the
> black chic who does the Soul Surfer Chick high heel flip flop shuffle
> is up on a split screen next to this Cheese Pimp. Doubles. You gotta
> read these two as doubles. Jason, he wants to be cool, but he don't
> even know how to pick a cool pimped out name, Cheese? Government
> Cheese? The dude's a fuckin virgin and he's trying to hustle some
> street bitches who been round the block more times than and in and
> outf of the joint and are livin under real fake names that actually
> have earning potential. This boy just been readin Pimp by Iceberg, no,
> no, not reading it, but consuming the shit, but not in paper form, but
> in plastic form--film--TV film. He's got the blax thang goin but his
> seeds be poppin and he's paying too much for that shit cause he ain
> never seen no Shinola. Dig?


First you say jason is a tv character in a tv show about tv then you  
mock him like he was real, laughably foolish in his naive stupidity.  
But if Pynchon is purely mocking him and showing how believing tv  
turns you into a Steppin Fetchit fool, where does the Rolls fit in?  
Too flashy or not, "They" don't give those away. Why would Pynchon  
give him one? Maybe this is Pynchon's take on Obama. Able to earn his  
own Rolls but not able to manage his "team of rivals". You are all  
ready to defend dream boy Obama. No way he could be pimpin for the  
demigod. But you get all worked up about  Doc's parents and anything  
that smells of Suburbia or TV. These are after all characters in a  
novel and not someone who sends drones and soldiers to kIll an Al  
Quaeda  long since moved out of town. I hear this was a great year  
for recruiting young people to "serve their country", what with the  
lack of jobs and all.  That and a peace prize should buy a lot of  
dead bodies. I also hear the bankers are going to be donating  
millions for American Democracy and most of it is going to the team  
of rivals. Maybe that's how he bought the Rolls.

Actually I can see that what you are saying is a valid way to read  
the novel -TV about TV. But the novel  itself keeps shading into the  
real and some very real things are put front and center: the housing  
bubble, political murder, the rape of the seas, environmental petro- 
poison, global financial fraud, drug addiction, organized crime in  
government, globalization, the dark side of the computer revolution etc.

I agree that he is mocking us, mocking a culture addicted to  
detective novels that can't seem to see the crimes that are affecting  
their lives but that  aren't  properly labeled  on TV.  But P does  
also name those crimes and tosses out leads to show the connections  
between the past and the present, between the crimes and the likely  
suspects, between our dreams, our realities and our stories and  
jokes. I don't watch TV but my limited exposure to the Simpsons  
seemed to show a sophisticated satiric sensibility. One could find  
worse models for effective satire, but I think Pynchon has his own.