Literary criticism and counterintelligence

[Thomas Eckhardt]

I find it interesting that Jesus James Angleton, chief of 
the CIA counterintelligence staff from 54 to 75 and next 
to Dulles probably the most influential member of the CIA 
(and a key figure of the Cold War), once founded a 
literary magazine in which he published poems by Williams, 
Pound and Cummings, amongst others, and carried on 
extensive correspondences with these poets as well as with 
T. S. Eliot. He also borrowed Eliot's phrase "a wilderness 
of mirrors" (from "Gerontion") to describe the 
intelligence/counterintelligence business, a usage that 
has meanwhile turned into a commonplace. Furthermore, 
Wikipedia says that Angleton was influenced by William 
Empson and "was trained in the New Criticism by Maynard 
Mack at Yale".

(For those who are not familar with Angleton, his 
Wikipedia entry makes for a fascinating read.)

On the other hand, Peter Dale Scott, who wrote some of the 
most important books on the CIA and related subjects (aka 
the American Deep State, the title of one of his books), 
is a poet and a retired professor of literature.

It all has to do with a penchant for reading between the 
lines and searching for hidden meanings, I guess. 
Something that has of course always played an important 
role in Pynchon's novels and for their readers.

As for New Criticism vs. reader-response theory, I tend to 
agree with Cleanth Brooks as quoted and paraphrased in 
Wikipedia:

"'If some of the New Critics have preferred to stress the 
writing rather than the writer, so have they given less 
stress to the reader—to the reader's response to the work. 
Yet no one in his right mind could forget the reader. He 
is essential for "realizing" any poem or novel... Reader 
response is certainly worth studying." However, Brooks 
tempers his praise for the reader-response theory by 
noting its limitations, pointing out that, 'to put meaning 
and valuation of a literary work at the mercy of any and 
every individual [reader] would reduce the study of 
literature to reader psychology and to the history of 
taste.'"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Criticism#Criticism

You can go too far either way.
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Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l