9-11 box cutters 11 september utility knives

[Joseph Tracy]

I have not expounded a single theory.  I have asked questions and in one instance provided someone else's theory/evidence as regards explosives. The only thing I have said that is close to a theory, but I see as an observation, is that media folks tend to thoughtlessly repeat certain phrases. I do not think this is an idea held only by a small group or related only to this story.

As far as the pervasiveness of the escaped Jews story,  I also remember reports of sympathy from Muslims. I never tried to figure out the percentage and am skeptical of polls in certain places, but it may have been larger than I thought.  So that statement could be an honest mistake. I do not wish to discredit the ability of bad ideas based on fear  to spread easily. I  also don't see much difference between this gullibility and the gullibility of Americans (70% as I remember)believing in Iraqi responsibility for 9-11.  Could Pynchon have been trying to discredit that by having Horst be the one who notices the put options, therefor showing that flat boring midwestern critical thinking cuts both ways. I feel like Horst is also  a second endorsement of the follow the money approach. I mean aren't some of these subtler points a matter of what stands out to the reader rather than the true and perfect interpretation?  There is also the effect of emotional engagement Pynchon gets by having Horst and the boys up in one of the towers and working there, and the practical decision as a writer to  save Horst and restart his marriage. Or to show how emotionally distant a close call can be.  Horst doesn't seem to be wracked with loss pain or guilt. He's a life-goes-on kinda guy.
   


On Nov 26, 2013, at 7:06 PM, Mark Kohut wrote:

> When a good writer has a midwestern Lutheran also not be in the towers that day,
> he is saying "something" about people and the towers that day. Nature of careful, thematic writing.
>  
> You are not right that "only a few paranoid Islamists had such a theory"...Read how pervasice it was/is
> in the Middle East. See polls of Americans...
>  
> I thought fewer had some of the theories you've expounded but I was wrong but at least one unexpected
> one...
> 
> 
> On Tuesday, November 26, 2013 6:19 PM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
> I don't see a lot of debunking going on. Some bunking, yes.  But this is a wild stretch to say that because Horst, the midwestern Lutheran with a penchant for TV biographies, ball games and futures divination, was gone on 9-11 this debunks a theory that only a few paranoid Islamists had.  You negate the obvious in the story and cling to very tenuous interpretations
> 
> 
> Fiona
> >>>> 
> >>>> Pynchon debunks these conspiracy theories; these divisive theories
> >>>> that say the Jews got out, the Arabs got out....the Bush people got
> >>>> out. He debunks them and piles them in the landfill with the Bush
> >>>> attack on Iraq.
> 
> On Nov 26, 2013, at 11:03 AM, Kai Frederik Lorentzen wrote:
> 
> > 
> > Thanks for the explanation!
> > 
> > Yet still. In what way does the fact that Horst can't explain why he wasn't in his office discredit his considerations about put options and lopsided put-to-call ratios? Are these considerations "debunked"? Is Horst? Where?
> > 
> > Not saying that 'the actual nature of 11 September' is the primary theme of "Bleeding Edge" (or that Pynchon knows more about it than you or me), but neither is this novel an anti-truther-satire. Not even in the case of March.
> >>>> 
> 
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
> 
> 

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