Kathyrn Hume on Late Coover

[alice wellintown]

> "Anarchist destruction" seems to be an unfortunate metaphor, possibly
> applicable to GR wherein the generally accepted laws of propriety for many
> readers and l'homme moyen sensuel are disregarded with reckless abandon.

Hume notes that in GR P exhibits a complete distrust of human
organizations, including the Red Cross and the family.   OK. By
Vineland, P exhibits, while not a complete trust in the family, a
belief in families, if not Ray-Guns's family values or Brock Vonds
un-holy triangle, families as they exist in many forms. Is Vineland
sentimental, nostaligic, ironic? Indeterminate? You decide.

But "anarchist destruction" is never celebrated in a P novel. Is it?

We have only an excerpt from Hume, and, it may seems I am making too
much of an unfortunate phrase, but....I still suspect a major
misreading here, one that would cast P as the Uni-bomber misreading
Conrad.


> The metaphor is unfortunate because a lot of folks regard anarchism,
> regardless of its impracticality and unlikelihood, as a worthy goal.
>
> But what IS total hooey is the idea that a writer's taking on lawful wedlock
> and child raising constitutes any kind of major factor in how he or she
> writes.  A wife is no substitute for a Muse, and children are, well.
> children.  Also, just for example, how do we know the Pyncher doesn't find
> his present domestic situation stifling and boring.  I don't think this is
> the case, but we certainly don't know.
>
> I'll go out on a limb because I'm not any kind of authority on the Pynchon
> Industry.  I just often have thought that group, of which Hume is in the
> leadership, sometimes feels duty bound to make Pynchon more "respectable"
> and in compliance with political correctness than he really (hopefully) is.
>
> So . .  . . when I read a passage in AtD that seems a little too gooey and
> sentimental I can still lie back and enjoy it for the sheer great writing,
> knowing full well in my heart of hearts that it remains still and forever a
> vital if more subtle  part of that great conspiracy theory that modern
> existence is.
>
>
> P
>
>
>
>>
>>
>>
>>> "As high postmodernism wanes, some of its leading figures have backed
>>> away from the void and have tried to offer partial answers to life's
>>> questions and some meaningful values. David Foster Wallace very
>>> tentatively seeks an ethic; Pynchon has shifted from complete distrust
>>> of every human organization (Gravity's Rainbow) to a strong and
>>> arguably sentimental belief in families. Pynchon once felt even the
>>> Red Cross could not escape the inherent evil of being an organization,
>>> but his latest two novels have shown more acceptance of social
>>> realities, and Inherent Vice celebrates negotiating society's
>>> obstacles rather than anarchist destruction.
>
>