Manson Cult; was Golden Fang

[Mark Kohut]

it seems clear that, from the beginning, his novels have been anti-State or, more precisely perhaps, anti- most States in History and anti the potential and achievement of abuse of basic rights by States. Such as the right to privacy, to be left alone, to NOT have to support corrupt policies of the regimes in power.........

Manjor theme: He "protests" the direction of Western and American history. 

Of course, he does not write "protest' novels. 

--- On Sun, 9/27/09, alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: Manson Cult; was Golden Fang
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Date: Sunday, September 27, 2009, 12:16 PM
> >
> > 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.
> 
>