Giddyup

[Paul Mackin]

On 10/5/2012 2:51 PM, Tom Beshear wrote:
> Interesting material -- I guess I need to read Lepore's book, which 
> sounds fascinating from the emails I've seen here, though I've been 
> told it isn't exactly a history of the war. One of William T. 
> Vollmann's projected Seven Dreams novels is supposed to center on King 
> Philip's War.

It's not a full blown history of the war, but Lepore is a real 
historian, relying on original sources.  She writes from a limited 
perspective. The subtitle of the book is: King Philip's War and the 
Origins of American Identity.  My copy of the book happened to be 
autographed and the explanation, I assumed at the time anyway, was that 
it came from the book shop near the ferry on Martha's Vineyard.   I 
imagined the author, who is Massachusetts based (Boston University then, 
now Harvard), was doing a book signing tour around the old Bay Colony.

Since everything is connected, as Mark reminds us, the original 
inhabitants of Martha's Vineyard were the Wampanoags, the branch of the 
Algonquin of whom King Philip (Metacomet) was the war leader.

Everything is connected to me.

P
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Paul Mackin" 
> <mackin.paul at verizon.net>
> To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Sent: Friday, October 05, 2012 2:33 PM
> Subject: Re: Giddyup
>
>
>> On 10/5/2012 1:39 PM, Monte Davis wrote:
>>> I seem to recall from Philbrick that King Philip's War was the 
>>> highest in
>>> per capita casualties on "our" side of all American (or NW European
>>> Immigrant) wars.
>>
>> Yes, because it was total war. No distinction between combatants and 
>> civilians.  From the dust jacket of Lepore's book: Both sides, in 
>> fact, had pursued the war seemingly without restraint killing women 
>> and children, torturing captives, and mutilating the dead.
>>
>> It outdid, Sherman's march through Georgia by a long shot. Curtis 
>> LeMay's "bomb them into the stone age" and "killing a nation" comes 
>> to mind as a modern template.
>>
>> Lepore's perspective is the reporting of the war (to which reporting 
>> Pynchon contributed) then and forward in time.  How public opinion 
>> was affected, including how justification for "Indian removal" was 
>> formulated in 19th Century.
>>
>> Pynchon seems quite overcome, never vindictive, just horrified. In 
>> one letter he demurs "I cannot write," meaning he is powerless to 
>> express it all.
>>
>> P
>>
>>
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] 
>>> On Behalf
>>> Of Paul Mackin
>>> Sent: Friday, October 05, 2012 11:18 AM
>>> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
>>> Subject: Re: Giddyup
>>>
>>> On 10/4/2012 12:31 PM, Paul Mac kin wrote:
>>>> On 10/4/2012 12:22 PM, Paul Mackin wrote:
>>>>> Who knew? John Pynchon was America's first cattle baron and imported
>>>>> Irish cowboys.
>>>>>
>>>>> http://www.lrgaf.org/articles/irish-cowboys.htm
>>>> Since it says John Pynchon was a participant in King Philip's War, I
>>>> looked for his name in the index of Jill Lepore's The Name of of War.
>>>> There are six references. Guess I'll read them after lunch.
>>>>
>>>> P
>>>>
>>>>
>>> OK, w/r/t Jill Lenore's book on the first Indian War (King Philips 
>>> War),
>>> John Pynchon's horseman (indentured servants,  slaves, and freemen, 
>>> termed
>>> cowboys in the other account but not by Jill) figured mainly as 
>>> messengers,
>>> carrying vital news from village to village, doing reconnaissance, etc.
>>> Pynchon himself, along with other leaders, wrote letters back home to
>>> England keeping them apprised of this horrendous
>>> eight year war in the colonies.   A Pynchon letter also describes the
>>> destruction of Springfield, in which his own operation was burned to 
>>> the
>>> ground.  He was in effect ruined and thereby, says Lenore, subject 
>>> to loss
>>> of identity and social standing in the community. John presumably 
>>> retained
>>> the substantial  land holdings his father William had left him.
>>> William, not mentioned by Lepore,  had had to flee the country after 
>>> his
>>> pamphlet was declared heretical.  a  Lepore makes no mention of the 
>>> still
>>> undecoded Pynchon account of the war, the one described in the online
>>> account.
>>>
>>> P
>>>
>>>
>>
>
>