The Ivory Dentist Dance

[Robin Landseadel]

On Sep 25, 2009, at 6:28 PM, alice wellintown wrote:

> Pynchon doesn't write about the CIA; he mocks those who waste their
> time with conspiracy.

At the same time he's writing about the CIA in Inherent Vice, there's  
no pussyfooting about it this time—times, places, Corporations, people  
histories. Which makes your argument null.

There's nothing wrong with you having another point of view. You just  
can't go around telling people what not to read into something, the  
sorts of information one is not supposed to get out of a book. The CIA  
isn't the only or the ultimate or the singular thread of Pynchon's  
writing. I know that.  It just happens to be a thread that interests  
me. Saying "Pynchon doesn't write about the CIA"—if that isn't overtly  
stupid then it's  passive-aggressively disingenuous. Maybe the  
Pynchon's connection to the Hawthornes or Tom's obsession with Rilke  
will turn out to be bigger fish to fry in the long run, maybe Inherent  
Vice will be thrown under the wheels of history's Escalade and The  
Secret Integration emerge as the key that unwinds everything, the  
Captain Midnight Magic Cabala Decoder Ring. I happened to have lived  
near the places Pynchon describes in Inherent Vice, they're important  
sites as regards the CIA's accidental development of the internet. And  
remember Doc's concerns, wondering why haven't they made this stuff  
illegal yet, like LSD?


We're past conspiracy here Alice—we're hip deep in history, the sort  
of history most people seem to want to know more about these days.