Kathyrn Hume on Late Coover

[Mark Kohut]

In the link to the Cambridge Companion to Pynchon that I believe
Kai posted, one could read a part of Ms. Hume's essay in it, opinions
from which she may be summarizing in the esssay we have been commenting
on.

It is in there I believe as I skimmed it, that she argues for the 'anarchist
destruction' theme of Against the Day specifically and only, it seems.

An generally very smart and good reviewer, Adam Kirsch, was the first (and
only, I beleive) major early reviewer to denounce Against the Day for this theme
as well. His review is linked on wikipedia and the Pynchon wiki I am pretty sure
without checking again.

I still think it is a misreading too.


----- Original Message -----
From: alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com>
To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Cc: 
Sent: Saturday, September 8, 2012 7:03 AM
Subject: Re: Kathyrn Hume on Late Coover

> wouldn't one be better served by a statement that GR makes a point of
> mentioning previously unmentionable facts that tend to "undercut a complete
> trust" in those organizations, rather than 'exhibit a complete distrust'?
> and that, like much good war fiction, it shows some of the many ways
> that reality differs from the happy horsecrap of the jingoistic propaganda
> churned out by ever so many warmongers and their ilk


Well, to be fair to Hume, we are yet working with a very tiny excerpt
here, but sure. But what attracts me to the excerpt is the description
of the author/text as one that celebrates anarchist destruction. This
is a very poor reading of the novel. And, given what comes after GR,
works that continue to question anarchist destruction, even as they
continue to fly towards Grace-land, a poor reading of the career of
this author. Not that P is static. But his works never celebrated
anarchist destruction.

Form the start, and, again, we should look first to The Secret
Integration and to V., because there we have the sick crew of  boys
and girls, then college kids, and international idiots, bent on
anarchist destruction who abandon their more noble project, for the
boys and girls in TSI, it is racial integration, after failing to blow
up the system. school system etc.

Then to GR.

In all of his works, fanatics, and violent ones are given the harshes
treatment, are ridiculed. In GR, for example, the scientists are
described in religious terms, as knights in search of an un-holy grail
and so forth. This search for a center, for pure new beginning, be it
after the bombs in Germany and Japan, or after all the Indians are
exterminated in America....this anarchists destruction that will allow
for a new utopia, is ridiculed.

At the same time, of course, the novels do distrust systems and
organizations, including, the family.
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