BE Spoiler (if that's possible now)

[Rich Clavey]

Well said,Fi.
--------------------------------------------
On Sat, 11/16/13, Fiona Shnapple <fionashnapple at gmail.com> wrote:

 Subject: Re: BE Spoiler (if that's possible now)
 To: "pynchon -l" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
 Date: Saturday, November 16, 2013, 8:46 AM
 
 In case of emergency call 911.
 
 In the subway and bus system, in Penn Station, Times Square,
 Grand
 Central, JFK, LaGuardia, at baseball, football, hockey
 games, in
 schools, in restaurants, in the libraries...in public and
 private
 spaces ...etc.,, still today, the tourists, commuters,
 residents are
 constantly reminded, by a robot recording to keep their
 snitch switch
 on, to be on guard for suspicious people and packages. It's
 crazier
 than Crazy Eddie's commercials, it's message is Insane.
 
 You can buy Ground Zero hats and 911 T-shirts and bumper
 stickers that
 support the Patriot Act. You can get  cabby in a jam by
 alerting a cop
 that he looks like he might have something under his turban.
 And
 people do.
 
 It's disgusting. And that is hat 911 means to me.
 
 The atrocity of September 11, and btw, I have always favored
 this
 method of writing a date (Elements of Style), is an
 improvement if
 only because the media and the maniacs don't use it. Those
 who claim
 that day, that history, that Truth, as Wicks, a brilliantly
 employed
 mouthpiece in this particular passage says, abandon it:
 
  "Who claims Truth, Truth abandons. History is hir'd, or
 coerc'd, only
 in Interests that must ever prove base. She is too innocent,
 to be
 left within the reach of anyone in Power, -- who need but
 touch her,
 and all her Credit is in the instant vanish'd, as if it had
 never
 been. She needs rather to be tended lovingly and honorably
 by
 fabulists and counterfeiters, Ballad-Mongers and Cranks of
 ev'ry
 Radius, Masters of Disguise to provide her the Costume,
 Toilette, and
 Bearing, and Speech nimble enough to keep her beyond the
 Desires, or
 even the Curiosity, of Government."
 --Mason & Dixon, Chapter 35, pg. 350
 
 In M&D, a work I grow finder of each time I dip into it,
 the
 mouthpiece, a common narrative strategy of the day is used
 brilliantly, but here, in BE we have no mouthpiece because
 it's not an
 option. So how does P get the facts to us? He can't give
 these to us
 from an character we've met. All of the characters are
 subjected to
 P's irony, so the reliability he seeks here can't be
 conveyed with a
 character. Also, he wants to make clear the distance, the
 authorial
 distance between his norms and those of Maxine, March, the
 Old
 Lefties, etc.
 
 Now, for whatever reason we have come to distrust and
 dislike these
 authorial commentaries. Post Henry James they have been
 rejected by
 sophisticated readers and critics. But that's a rather
 foolish way to
 proceed because most of the great literature before James
 makes use of
 commentary. Sometimes, it's simply the best method. So why
 condemn it?
 There is nothing wrong with P's stepping onto the sage and
 telling us,
 in his own voice, the one we recognize from his SL and other
 prose
 pieces, the facts of the atrocity. Moreover, P wants, not to
 diminish
 the dead, or the atrocity, but to counter, discredit the
 disgusting
 and dishonorable time and space, 911, ground zero, and so he
 pulls it
 from the drama, that would, of course, heighten it. He does
 not omit
 it or relegate it to a non-event, compare or contrast it
 with other
 events, as we see in V., with the Six Million, and in GR
 with Dora and
 so forth, but through the juxtaposition of the screed he
 writes here
 with the comic drama, he has his say, no ambiguity, no
 mirrors, no
 smoke, no tricks or cute self-consciousness.
 
 
 And so, as Robin said, though he is there throughout the
 narrative,
 all other commentary is but the beating of his tell tale
 heart; here
 we see his face.
 
 On Sat, Nov 16, 2013 at 8:17 AM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>
 wrote:
 > 9-11 isn't a cliche, it's a convention, just like
 24/7.  11 September is
 > just a bit cumbersome.
 >
 >
 > On Saturday, November 16, 2013, jochen stremmel wrote:
 >>
 >> >Any idea why he goes 11 September vs 9-11?<
 >>
 >> 1) Because he has 24/7 in the sentence before.
 >>
 >> 2) Because he regards 9-11 as a cliché, similar to
 "Ground Zero"?
 >>
 >>
 >> 2013/11/16 David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>:
 >> > And Most Importantly, we are not told what to
 think. We are told what
 >> > current thoughts are happening, without taking
 sides.
 >> >
 >> >
 >> > On Friday, November 15, 2013, David Morris
 wrote:
 >> >>>
 >> >>> BUT perhaps it's entirely appropriate
 (and deliberate) that this
 >> >>> abrupt
 >> >>> and STRIKING shift in voice occurs
 when it does. The novel's
 >> >>> form reflecting the atrocity itself,
 subjecting the reader to a kind
 >> >>> of
 >> >>> authorial violence (we are suddenly
 told what to think of all this)
 >> >>
 >> >>
 >> >> Wow! & What?  Violence via tone
 shift?
 >> >>
 >> >> I agree that those three paragraphs read
 like an essay. P surely knows
 >> >> what he did here in this most central
 point of his 11-9 novel.  It is
 >> >> admission of ignorance as much as an
 asking of forgiveness for
 >> >> paranoia.
 >> >> But not a complete retreat.  The
 Paper of Record is a stand-in for
 >> >> blind
 >> >> consumerism info, his common refrain.
 >> >>
 >> >> Any idea why he goes 11 September vs
 9-11?
 -
 Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
 
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l