N (exactly)P - You cant go home again

[Mark Thibodeau]

TRUMP!!!

On Mon, Jun 13, 2016 at 5:44 AM, matthew cissell <mccissell at gmail.com> wrote:
> There is something in Wolfe that reminds me of Pynchon.
>
> From the end (Credo) of You Can't Go Home Again:
>
> I believe that we are lost here in America, but I believe we shall be found.
> And this belief, which mounts now to the catharsis of knowledge and
> conviction, is for me--and I think for all of us----not only our own hope,
> but America's everlasting, living dream. I think the life which we have
> fashioned in America, and which has fashioned us--the forms we made, the
> cells that grew, the honeycomb that was created--was self-destructive in its
> nature, and must be destroyed. I think these forms are dying, and must die,
> just as I know that America and the people in it are deathless,
> undiscovered, and immortal, and must live.
>
> I think the true discovery of America is before us. I think the true
> fulfilment of our spirit, of our people, of our mighty and immortal land, is
> yet to come. I think the true discovery of our own democracy is still before
> us. And I think that all these things are certain as the morning, as
> inevitable as noon. I think I speak for most men living when I say that our
> America is Here, is Now, and beckons on before us, and that this glorious
> assurance is not only our living hope, but our dream to be accomplished.
>
> I think the enemy is here before us, too. But I think we know the forms and
> faces of the enemy, and in the knowledge that we know him, and shall meet
> him, and eventually must conquer him is also our living hope. I think the
> enemy is here before us with a thousand faces, but I think we know that all
> his faces wear one mask. I think the enemy is single selfishness and
> compulsive greed. I think the enemy is blind, but has the brutal power of
> his blind grab. I do not think the enemy was born yesterday, or that he grew
> to manhood forty years ago, or that he suffered sickness and collapse in
> 1929, or that we began without the enemy, and that our vision faltered, that
> we lost the way, and suddenly were in his camp. I think the enemy is old as
> Time, and evil as Hell, and that he has been here with us from the
> beginning. I think he stole our earth from us, destroyed our wealth, and
> ravaged and despoiled our land. I think he took our people and enslaved
> them, that he polluted the fountains of our life, took unto himself the
> rarest treasures of our own possession, took our bread and left us with a
> crust, and, not content, for the nature of the enemy is insatiate--tried
> finally to take from us the crust.
>
> I think the enemy comes to us with the face of innocence and says to us:
>
> "I am your friend."
>
> I think the enemy deceives us with false words and lying phrases, saying:
>
> "See, I am one of you--I am one of your children, your son, your brother,
> and your friend. Behold how sleek and fat I have become--and all because I
> am just one of you, and your friend. Behold how rich and powerful I am--and
> all because I am one of you--shaped in your way of life, of thinking, of
> accomplishment. What I am, I am because I am one of you, your humble brother
> and your friend. Behold," cries Enemy, "the man I am, the man I have become,
> the thing I have accomplished--and reflect. Will you destroy this thing? I
> assure you that it is the most precious thing you have. It is yourselves,
> the projection of each of you, the triumph of your individual lives, the
> thing that is rooted in your blood, and native to your stock, and inherent
> in the traditions of America. It is the thing that all of you may hope to
> be," says Enemy, "for"--humbly--"am I not just one of you? Am I not just
> your brother and your son? Am I not the living image of what each of you may
> hope to be, would wish to be, would desire for his own son? Would you
> destroy this glorious incarnation of your own heroic self? If you do, then,"
> says Enemy, "you destroy yourselves--you kill the thing that is most
> gloriously American, and in so killing, kill yourselves."
>
> He lies! And now we know he lies! He is not gloriously, or in any other way,
> ourselves. He is not our friend, our son, our brother. And he is not
> American! For, although he has a thousand familiar and convenient faces, his
> own true face is old as Hell.
>
> Look about you and see what he has done.
>
>
> ciao
>
> mc
>
>
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Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l