Pynchon & Math (Aristotle vs. Plato)

[Mark Kohut]

Compared to all the lit crit postmodern deconstructionists, P on politics has
been neglected, I suggest. 
 

________________________________
 From: alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com>
To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org> 
Sent: Tuesday, January 29, 2013 6:31 AM
Subject: Re: Pynchon & Math (Aristotle vs. Plato)
  
Negative Liberties: Morrison, Pynchon, and the Problem of Liberal
Ideology by  Cyrus R. K. Patell


And, again, though not cited by Lacey, there is that 1999 Oklahoma
City University Oklahoma City University Law Review on the works of
Pynchon, and, while law and politics are not identical, all of the
essays focus on P-Politics.

And, a quick look into Pynchon Notes disabuses us of Lacey's claim
that P-Poliitics have been ignored.

Anywayz, Lacey's apparent  ignorance of the enormous material that has
been published on P-Politics is insignificant when we set it next to
Lacey's ignorance of literature and how to read it. That he quickly
dismisses the postmodern readings is, again, a way to get his essay
going, but when he applies, even the basics of reading literature to
his analysis, his essay quickly loses out attention and devolves into
mere political statements, claims he attributes to Pynchon (be these
defensible or not) by reducing the most complex characters to
allegorical figures.  So, Pointsman is the "dark side of the will to
power" and Weissmann is European Colonialism made monsterous by a
pathology of power.

Now, these chraracterizations are certainly there in GR, easy enough
to see, and,  if we read GR as allegory, as Lacey does, we can't help
but see that Pynchon expects us to see undersand the allegorical
meanings, but GR is not 1984, or Animal Farm. Much as Pynchon admires
Orwell, he does not write like Orwell. He might wish to write essays
like Mr. Orwell, but he can not be said to write novels him. Much as P
is chastised by Mr Wood and others for his cartoon characters, his
major and complex characters, are not merely cartoons or only
alegorical figures.

So, there is arichness that Lacey ignores to support his TS. The TS is
probably correct, though not supported by the analysis.
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