Goodbye for now, P-list

[rich]

Be well, Joseph

I've been on this list for 18 yrs and cant seem to stay away for long. Hope
in future you will, too

rich


On Wed, Oct 9, 2013 at 1:57 PM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:

> This review( see below) is a pretty classic interpretation of Pynchon with
> the family more strongly emphasized as a tonic to societal madness than
> most Pynchon scholars would do. I think his take on where Pynchon has
> pointed himself and where he has ended up may be fundamentally right, in
> which case I feel that I've allowed myself to be duped by a writer who is
> or has become an advocate of political and moral passivity and mindless
> entertainment; a writer who also advocates keeping a sensible personal self
> defensive guard up against lies, theft, violence, bullying and even getting
> too involved in resistance to evil, since we are all potentially seduced by
> that evil and all attempts to improve our social worlds are futile and even
> demonic. Whatever.
>
> NO conspiracies, because no single conspiracy?  Historically absurd
> nonsense. I prefer my own interpretation. It isn't that March sees the
> truth of an  all encompassing global us-them conspiracy. It is that there
> are quite a few very nasty conspiracies which are simply perfectly
> acceptable( with sufficient liquidity) to those with the power to address
> them politically or legally. If you try to document and expose these
> conspiracies you will be marginalized, jailed, threatened, killed etc.
> right here in the US of A.  March oversimplifies what she sees a glimpse
> of, Maxine quite reasonably chumps out after seeing more than anyone else(
> she is , in fact, as baffled as March)  Reg redirects his efforts, Avi
> learns a lesson, the web wars are clearly going on but don't look good for
> the info wants, should or has to be free crowd,  and nobody in any Pynchon
> novel can put enough of a hole in any of the shady shit to make much
> difference; but Pynchon never really deals with or fully incarnates the
> real resistance in the real world. Because of the loss of legal recourse,
> because media have become little more than  republican democrat propaganda,
> because of the real arrests and the loss of a meaningful bill of rights,
> volunteers for resistance in the real world are few and sometimes paranoid.
> Nevertheless there are quite a few defectors from the red blue wars who by
> any standards show the power of resistance in far more impressive import
> than the characters in Pynchon novels, which characters are really all just
> him.
>
> Some here think our current civilization is fundamentally a slow steady
> progress toward greater freedom and comfort and knowledge. I think it is a
> deadly technological fantasy which masks an unsustainable bargain with
> greed, violence and the planetary wars these addictions engender. What
> Pynchon thinks on this score is endlessly debatable with mountains of
> evidence on both sides for those who are usually  already persuaded . I do
> think a big part of the problem is outsized political entities built on
> military  and technical might, which is the urge to control spoken of in
> this review. Which brings us to family, work, personal integrity,
> community, neighborhood, and how all these most humanizing realities  are
> also inevitably corrupted by  opaque and outsized institutions . Passivity
> and non-involvement seems to me as much a delusion as any other, and often
> amounts to simply fucking the fascists.  I am neither a socialist nor a
> libertarian nor a majoritarian. Wisdom seems more a blend and balance than
> a pure set of ideals. I  simply want to see humans continue long enough to
> strike a reasonably peaceable relation with the natural world and each
> other. This is obviously possible as many and probably most humans have
> lived this way and must be prodded with constant fear and propaganda to
> leave their friendlier ways.   But passivity and self protection aren't
> enough for me and I do not admire America's or Israel's example in the
> least. Nuclear armed tribalism and apartheid are not the answer.
>
> I have enjoyed the historic dark  and often unimagined corners which
> reading Pynchon has brought me into along with the jokes and layers of
> meaning which he builds with his sentences and storytelling leaps ,  but I
> prefer conversations with people who are prepared to make some honest
> guesses or clear assertions rather than continuing to spend time in a hall
> of mirrors which is where trying to talk about Pynchon books  seems to lead
> me and others.
>
> There is nothing in this novel for me and though I enjoy much of what
> happens here on the P-list I will be pretty scarce from now on.
>
>  I will be happy to converse off list but: Please cancel my part in the
> group read.
>
> Much genuine affection and respect for all. You are some smart and
> interesting people who have stimulated much thought  for me.
>
> Joseph Tracy,  he of the inconsistent punktuation.
>
> >
> > http://theamericanreader.com/review-thomas-pynchons-bleeding-edge/
> >
>
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>
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