Goodbye for now, P-list

[Keith Davis]

You can check out anytime you like, but......


On Thu, Oct 10, 2013 at 10:58 AM, Henry M <scuffling at gmail.com> wrote:

> You can take yourself out of the P-Liste, but...
>
> Yours truly,
> ٩(●̮̮̃•̃)۶
> Henry Musikar, CISSP
> http://astore.amazon.com/tdcoccamsaxe-20
>
>
> 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
>>
>
>


-- 
www.innergroovemusic.com
http://cdbaby.com/cd/keithdavistrio2
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