Parochial Plea

[John Bailey]

Fosters Lager is essentially just a memory in Australia, although the
company itself is still very successful. It's an "export" beer so it's
more usually brewed and consumed in the US and the UK.

BUT I did come across a reference to a 2.2 litre beer which was
available in the far North during the 70s, so perhaps Pynchon is
writing accurately here.

Anyway, my broader point is that it's interesting how a writer with
such a fascination for the idea of "North" - evident in most of his
books as a thick, sometimes monstrous constellation of meanings -
hasn't really employed a similar idea of "South", which is itself
pretty common in a lot of other literature. M&D does head this way
with the scenes in South Africa, and there are hints in the Herero
sequences of V. and GR. But overall, there are very few trips south of
the equator in all of P's writing.

Also, and I wonder if others would agree with me here, but I find P's
American-ness absolutely key to his writing. It is impossible for me
to read him as a US p-lister does (if only for the number of
references, idioms etc that I just don't key into) and I'd imagine the
same goes in reverse. It's why M&D is my least favourite work, since
it toys with founding myths that aren't embedded in my mind at all.

On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 2:53 AM, Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 8:51 AM, Joe Allonby <joeallonby at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Foster's was unknown in America at the time. When it was first
>> introduced, Americans were very impressed by the size of the "oil
>> cans".
>
> My oldest, bestest freind in the world's family owned a liquor
> distributorship @ one time (which si why I grew up underage drinking
> Belgian et al. beers [$3 for a 22 oz, bottle of Chimay back in the
> day, IF you had to pay for it] + German table wines; once tehre was a
> tab to pick up, I quickly gave up beinga  beer et al. snob, it's been
> "gimme the chepaest, crappiest ber you've got," rail vodka + "gimme
> something blue" ever since, save my occasional bout of Stingers or
> somesuch).  My one and only Sprin Beak trip I sept lounging in the
> back of a van (I hhave never been what one might call a "licensed
> driver") on top of a mattress on top of 32 cases of Fosters an/or KB
> Lager.  Each ...
>