BEER Group Read. Chap 2. Reg Despard, Artist?!

[Michael Bailey]

Sez Mark (amid a plethora of good  points re modernism and Pynchon
precursors etc al)
>
> I mean there is DEATH in this book, right? Not just kitsch.....there is
worldwide financial manipulation that sure seems to speak
> to the world's REAL recent past.

With all due respect to NY and New Yorkers, GR's setting, wwii, was so full
of death that all the attendant horrors of 9-11 would fit in a corner of
one bombing raid or offensive and not alter the picture much...my point is
not to minimize the horrors of 9-11 - I'm not an animal - but to note that
Pynchon has talked about death before!  Ww2, the big one!  Everything
almost any new Yorker went thru from 9/11/01 to 9/11/2002 would be
considered a fairly easy year by the average European between 1939-45. If
that is an exaggeration - which I'm not sure...then definitely the average
Russian or Japanese...

His take then and now includes the following points that I've noted

A) some people are making money off of this action (but see Eigenvalue in
V. "No conspiracy but random caries.")

B) it's not that easy to find steady work after leaving Maggie's farm, as
Ken Kesey wrote, but interesting to follow the tale of those who "try in
[their] own way to be free"
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