Mendelson's View of P's 2ble Visioner

[Monte Davis]

MB > a proper awareness & appreciation of paranoia

 

In these days of speed-blurred NSA back-pedaling, prompting us perhaps to
adapt Lily Tomlin's (& Jane Wagner's) "No matter how cynical you become,
it's never enough to keep up".

 

To something along the lines of "No matter how paranoid you become, They're
still keeping the worst of it from you" 

 

From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On Behalf
Of Michael Bailey
Sent: Monday, October 07, 2013 11:04 AM
To: Markekohut
Cc: pynchon-l at waste.org
Subject: Re: Mendelson's View of P's 2ble Visioner

 

Or, simply a true statement, and a useful thing to remember.

Perhaps, one might say, an herbal restatement of one of our wonderful
author's lasting contributions - a proper awareness & appreciation of
paranoia - in keeping with the gustatory plenty (i mean,tongue!!!??? - is it
harkening back to the zany paraclete in c49 ) everpresent in the book

On Oct 7, 2013 9:10 AM, "Markekohut" <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> "Paranoia's the garlic in one's kitchen..you can never have too much"...a
character sez in BE..not looking up who until the Read....Pynchon parodying
himself? Pynchon parodying his READERS, first level " interpreters" ? I.e.
his ' media' understxanding? OR
>
>  Just another groaner? Just another groaner anyway if parody? 
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> On Oct 7, 2013, at 8:38 AM, Markekohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> I am afraid that, in the duck-rabbit picture analogy, if one sees
satire/parody where the other sees
>> an inadequate presentation of ethnic types, the only response is "Look at
it this way, I think your
>> Response is .....not right" 
>>
>> Both could be wrong,of course.
>>
>> Many reviewers, readers, if not the posting Plisters, dunno, asked where
was the language, where was the lyricism, those incredible word-compacted
scenes that were in GR, when Vineland was  published. I, too, felt it but
found, finally, a different book. 
>>
>> Vineland and its California-American cultural immersion may be the right
oeuvre analogy for the New York-global America immersion of Bleeding Edge. 
>>
>> especially since we know what he himself, at mid-life, said about CofL49.
So many want to pair
>> That with this one...'cause of a female protagonist? Flimsy, IMHO. 
>>
>> It is the cultural immersiveness, the McLuhan-grounded insight that as
Godard put it, " movies are not a reflection of reality, but are the reality
of the reflection". New York is the reality of the reflection in Bleeding
Edge. 
>>
>> Even all of the plisters who felt the parody of an upper West sIde Jew
who was "a power-player from the margins" ..." Like Karl Rove"......was not
funny...........is one possible reason you thought it was not funny, or one
other way it wasn't right, was that that old stereotype of pastrami mafia (
in any way,) is over in NYC. so over, the humor is historically dated? 
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Sent from my iPad
>>
>> On Oct 7, 2013, at 8:06 AM, Carvill John <johncarvill at hotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> << In BE, P's parody of his and our preoccupation with rich media
culture is a double in the sense that P saturates the prose, the dialogue,
the narrative with rich media culture to sit us down on the Simpson's couch
so we can see ourselves watching ourselves transmogrified into toons, into
tabloid talk, into real TV personalities, into video game avatars, etc.,
into a citizenship that has no privacy, no more than the Kardashians,
because we don't want it. We wnt our MTV, we want to go viral on Youtube
doing something so Twerky we are made into a celebrity. What's wrong with
being citizens, protecting ou neighbors, our grandparents, parents and
children, our privacy? But this only step one. The creative use of rich
media to parody rich media is step two. So P is not out to write abook that
simply says rich media is damageing to our liberty, to our greater culture.
That's too obvious, too much an old man's lament and screed. Co-opt it!
That's what he's done here. And it's so funny we need to laugh at it. And
laughter, along with the lament for what is wasted in poor medai land, is a
good tonic. >>
>>>
>>> An interesting theory. Not that far removed form saying: "Since we live
in a vacant, trash obsessed culture, the author has presented us with a
vacant, trash-centric text..." To my mind, he would have served us better by
writing us a decent book!
>>>
>>> > Mr P has given us another gift of his genius. Beleive it if you need
it, if you don't, pass it on. 
>>>
>>> In as much as this seems to imply that those of us who don't like the
new book just don't 'get' it, this does not do much to lend credibility to
your interpretation.
>>>
>>>

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