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

[Paul Mackin]

On 6/22/2011 11:08 AM, Mark Kohut wrote:
> yeah, paul, true but I wondered why it is not even mentioned since
> anti-Americanness
> as a charge ought to be in play with some of those intellectuals....

All I can guess is that Gaddis' intellectuals were not in the public 
eye, not as were Hollywood  or Broadway  writers and actor or prominent 
teachers or clergymen,  people in a position to influence mass 
audiences,  and therefore not worth McCarthy's efforts.

Gaddis' people weren't really players, as they say.  Self important only.

Don't think Gaddis himself could have been very concerned that his work 
would be noticed and castigated by  the anti-communist demogogues of the 
day.  Too high brow.  Same goes for Pynchon a little later.
P




> i like cfabel's remarks on the politics of the essential, the necessary, since I
> guess one
> of gaddis key metaphors is the universality of cultural truths what with that
> golden bough
> stuff and all......
>
> But, still         
>
> And later in the book I learn of lots of betrayals of former freinds......a key
> deep McCarthy trope maybe?
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: cfabel<cfabel at sfasu.edu>
> To: Paul Mackin<mackin.paul at verizon.net>; Mark Kohut<markekohut at yahoo.com>;
> pynchon-l at waste.org
> Sent: Tue, June 21, 2011 2:16:28 PM
> Subject: RE: TRTR: Racking my brain over The Rackignitons....
>
> Perhaps implicit is the oppositional conceptualization of "political
> reality;" the politics, on the one hand, of the universal, the necessary,
> the essential, the cultural, in opposition to the politics of the
> contextual, the contingent, the ambiguous, and the artistic?
>
> The conservative promises to copy the original by engaging some process of
> recovery in opposition to the sincerely creative (enhancing?). The copy
> promised emphasizing strongly the invisible artist(s) of our (political)
> culture, the ghost(s).
>
> C. F. Abel
> Chair
> Department of Government
> Stephen F. Austin State University
> Nacogdoches, Texas 75962
> (936) 468-3903
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On Behalf
> Of Paul Mackin
> Sent: Tuesday, June 21, 2011 11:02 AM
> To: Mark Kohut; pynchon-l at waste.org
> Subject: Re: TRTR: Racking my brain over The Rackignitons....
>
> 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
>