Manson Cult; was Golden Fang

[alice wellintown]

>
> Which novel?

All of them.

>
> " In 1968, Pynchon was one of 447 signatories to the "Writers and Editors
> War Tax Protest". Full-page advertisements in The New York Post and The New
> York Review of Books listed the names of those who had pledged not to pay
> "the proposed 10% income tax surcharge or any war-designated tax increase",
> and stated their belief 'that American involvement in Vietnam is morally
> wrong' ."  (New York Review of Books 1968:9) - Via Wiki's TPR entry

Yes, but this doesn't support the argument that his fictions are
protest novels. The P-list has become a discussion of the politics of
Pynchon. Those who advance non-political readings or other arguments
are labled fascists. The FANBOYS are poor readers of fiction and,
frustrated muckraking journalists, who crowd out any serious critiques
of the works.

> This is pre-GR but post CRoL49 and V.  His forward to  Orwell's 1984  (2004
> edition)  was pretty "protest" oriented, too.


He said little in that Introduction that hadn't been said by others
and with more clearity. What he noted is that Orwell's novel has been
used by the political readers of fiction to advance ideas, Left and
Right, that don't square with what Orwell wrote or thought. Of course,
this is nearly unavoidable. Once published, a cannonical text will
evolve in ways its author never imagined, but Pynchon, as he notes in
the letters, makes a concerted effort to prevent this from happening
to his works. That we are reading IV here as if it were some protest
against the CIA and the Private Police in Amerika is absurd.