"Bin Laden May Not Exist"

Mon Jun 23 05:42:48 CDT 2014

No, no, no ...

There are two hot issues in /Bleeding Edge/ that never got discussed 
adequately. One is the Luddite perspective on the Internet which at the 
novel's end becomes obvious in Ernie's historical excursion to the roots 
of the Internet in the Cold War (pp. 417-420) and then in Eric's related 
diagnosis:"We're being played, Maxi, and the game is fixed, and it won't 
end till the Internet - the real one, the dream, the promise - is 
destroyed" (p. 432). Do note that these utterances are not downplayed 
with irony. Actually the opposite is the case. But nobody looks at them. 
This central aspect is neglected with the same sense of embarrassment as 
the novel's construction of 11 Sep ... "Foolish Pynchon, was this really 
necessary?!" Michiko Kakutani has occupied your brains, folks. And you 
don't even realize it. /Bleeding Edge/ is /not/ an anti-truther-satire. 
Not even in the case of March, who is not a ridiculous yet a tragic 
character. And the arguments which question the official version of the 
event come from a number of characters in the book. Horst for example is 
neither hysteric nor an idiot. He recognizes insider trade when he sees 
it because this competence is part of his profession. So it is not at 
all clear - though formulations here like "(t)he use of Conspiracy was 
examined" seem to suggest this - that Pynchon shares the official 
version that the attacks came as surprise. The fact that 11 Sep already 
played a role in /Against the Day/ should make a detailed analysis of 
its treatment in /Bleeding Edge/ a must. But no, no, here this is read 
as a merely atmospheric thriller ingredient, as if BE was fucking IV. 
Same for the Luddite perspective on the Internet. "Uuh, Pynchon wants to 
take away my toy, I rather ignore this ..." So instead of concretely 
examining Pynchon overall major theme --- TECHNOLOGY & CONTROL - in this 
new novel where we learn about the genesis of Cold War 2.0, you suckers 
write about shelf warmers like 'Neo-Liberalism' and even 
'Late-Capitalism'. Yeah, how could one not call this a "fine job"?

Rest in Pussyness!

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=1406&msg=180729&sort=date

On 22.06.2014 17:17, Mark Kohut wrote:
> Well remembered and stated.
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Jun 22, 2014, at 10:03 AM, alice malice<alicewmalice at gmail.com>  wrote:
>
>> I think we did a fine job with the political themes.  Neo-Liberalism
>> and Late-Capitalism were explored in depth. The use of Conspiracy was
>> examined. We discussed the family because it's impossible to ignore
>> the fact that Pynchon's politics are played out in his fictional
>> families.  In Bleeding Edge families have nice boys, good kids, given
>> a great education...who turn out to be Ice Monsters...families have
>> daughters they protect from the struggle they wage to keep their
>> neighborhoods, who, because of cultural and technological forces (Tube
>> & Co.) turn, not completely, but turn to power fascism....and so on.
>> We discussed this at some length. Unless I dreamed it.
>>
>>
>> OK, back to the game most Americans don't know is going down.
>>
>> Peace,
>>
>> Al
>>
>> On Sun, Jun 22, 2014 at 6:00 AM, Mark Kohut<mark.kohut at gmail.com>  wrote:
>>> The interview sounds wrong to me in possibility and from the word ' trendy'
>>> on. It has been disavowed by Ms. Jackson.
>>>
>>> "Late capitalism" in BLEEDING EDGE has been discussed. And the usual
>>> miscellany of other aspects, many of them 'political'. A key cultural (
>>> embodied politics )aspect of BE is what made many plisters dislike it: pop
>>> has totally won. Also pretty clear that money took NYC and in the way
>>> novels write themselves larger than their literalness.....
>>>
>>> And the future awaits anyone on the paths less traveled now on the plist.
>>>
>>> Sent from my iPad
>>>
>>> On Jun 22, 2014, at 3:01 AM, Kai Frederik Lorentzen<lorentzen at hotmail.de>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>> What “Bleakhaus” couldn’t have known when he or she wrote this is that,
>>>>> while Against the Day (2006) may touch on 9/11 symbolically, his 2013 book
>>>>> Bleeding Edge deals with it literally—it’s part of the book’s plot. <<
>>> Very true.
>>>
>>> Unfortunately neither reviewers nor plisters seem to be interested in
>>> discussing the novel's construction of 11 Sep ... They discuss Bleeding Edge
>>> as family novel and/or NYC novel. The basic political dimension of the plot
>>> has not been analyzed by anyone so far.
>>>
>>> On 21.06.2014 21:22, Dave Monroe wrote:
>>>
>>> http://touch.dangerousminds.net/all/bin_laden_may_not_exist_did_thomas_pynchon_give_this_9_11_interview
>> -
>> Pynchon-l /http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
> -
> Pynchon-l /http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=nchon-l
>
>

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