NP: If only someone had *told* us about all this surveillance

[Thomas Eckhardt]

Am 14.11.2013 19:28, schrieb Joseph Tracy:

>  The pressures on those who actively resist are real but also
> beget a destructive and often delusional paranoia.

Isn't that one of Pynchon's themes?

> As far as Bleeding
> edge, Maxine never goes as far as Perry Fellwok but does opt for the
> same personal resolution to the personal fears and pressures of
> trying to stop or even expose accurately a  multi-headed juggernaut.
> It is scary, each head with its own idea of what it is up to and each
> defending itself in its own antinomian style.   She opts for private
> low danger family life, albeit troubled and in some ways far phonier
> than the sentimental crap some reviewers have attached to it. This
> niche is what remains of the American dream.  Maybe that is what
> Pynchon is saying.  It's a little too Maggie Thatcherish to me

Thatcherish in the sense that there is "no such thing as society?" 
Everyone for him- or herself? You are speaking about the ending, I 
assume, which you seem to interpret as Maxine's retreat into the family 
cocoon. But doesn't she just have responsibilities that do not allow her 
to try and stop the "multi-headed juggernaut" evoked by Pynchon or go on 
exposing it? And she cares for other people. And we don't know which 
cases she will pursue after the ending of the novel...

For what happens when somebody indeed does try to expose the forces 
behind the scene (in this case the juggernaut is portrayed as an 
octopus), one may look at the story of Danny Casolaro which is pertinent 
to BE via PROMIS.

> To be honest I think it is a fucked up niche and I'm in it myself. I
> too have spent many of my recent years in greater contentment than
> much of my life, but I feel in my gut that this niche is like Anne
> Frank's parents who  nurture a child  with dreams of a kinder
> humanity, but know what is most likely on the way to my door and/or
> my children's door.

You can keep cool but care, vote, demonstrate, prepare for the worst, 
and that's about it, isn't it?

Thank you.

Thomas

P.S. Has anyone yet connected Maxine Tarnow to Maxine Waters? I don't 
think this is just a coincidence.

-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l