TRTR: Racking my brain over The Rackignitons....

[Paul Mackin]

On 6/21/2011 10:51 AM, Mark Kohut wrote:
> Where do some thoughts come from,  I ask myself, in ways that won't much
> interest you plisters?
>
> But, last evening I was ill, chills and fever and waking up often and once when
> I did I had this thought:
> Do you know what isn't in The Recogntions, given its time frame?
>
> McCarthyism. 
>
> Pervades TRP; compare and contrast.
>
The Recognitions took place in the late forties to early to middle 50s, 
which was certainly the McCarthy era.

However the milieu of R was pretty much intellectual and cultural 
allusion, almost to the point of exhaustion. Not much room for a low 
brow like McCarthy.

McCarthy played the ignoramus and appealed to the ill informed.  To the 
extent there ever was a Communist threat McCarthy was totally 
ineffective in thwarting it. His lists were a hoax. He was pure 
demagogue.  Nixon at least got Hiss.

None of this is to imply that McCarthyism wasn't a very sinister force 
of the era. Just a different type of sinister from the one Gaddis was 
interested in.

I've dashed this off without much thought and am probably overlooking 
something but what the heck.

P