AtD/VL: The Traverse Clan

[Henry M]

Nobody fucks with Bigfoot's partner, either.  Just sayin'.

AsB4,
٩(●̮̮̃•̃)۶
Henry Mu
http://astore.amazon.com/tdcoccamsaxe-20


On Tue, Dec 14, 2010 at 12:44 PM, <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:

> Thanks for the kind feedback, everyone, to my story.  WHat the guy who said
> "No one fucks with my partner" exemplified to me is that old, romantic union
> solidarity that's fast fading.  I was lucky to work with a handful of
> electricians who understood the concept of solidarity, but for most, it was
> a screw or be screwed mentality.
>
> There's discussion in another thread of what it is that makes many of us
> think that Pynchon's sympathies are leftwards.  The Traverse family seems to
> be one piece of evidence.  Webb embodies the One Big Union mentality, as
> does Jesse later in Vineland.  Their unionism descends directly from the
> anarchist Wobblies.  The union solidarity of my partner in the story
> descended from the romantic brotherhood of the craft unions, not leftist in
> ideology, but anti-boss and anti-the-powers-that-be in instinct.  One
> contributing factor to the demise of power of the present-day AFL-CIO is
> that the industrial union model loses out on the gut-level brotherhood
> mentality of the old craft unions (which the early sit-down striking
> industrial unionists retained) and also loses out on the romance of One Big
> Union.  There's no room for passion - just stepped pay-scales, percentages
> and bottom lines.  Why should Pynchon, young or old, have any affinity with
> that?
>
> What I don't get is why Pynchon sets up the Traverse women, Lake and
> Frenesi, as the Enemies of Labor/progressive activism.  Can't think of any
> real-life counterparts, although American labor history is full of male
> union official sell-outs - to government redbaiting, corporate "sharing" and
> mafia coercion.  Probably the most famous case of male perfidy:  James
> McParlan vs. the Molly Maguires.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_McParlan
>
> Laura
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> >From: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
>
> >
> >I LIKE this story...and the way it is told....nice
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20101214/a485aecd/attachment.html>