Politics vs Art

[David Morris]

I think GR is a Rorschach blotch.

That is a part of its genius.

It lets everyone see their beliefs become possibly true.

Amen.

David Morris

On Sun, May 1, 2016 at 8:38 PM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:

> I don’t see how anarchist golf was much more than a bit of fun with the
> idea of anarchism. It was funny to me and sandwiched inside weightier and
> darker themes as comic relief, Poinstman of the knights of the sacred
> toiled bowl, a youthful pig god running amok in the green hills od postwar
> Germany.
>
> Also the question of whether GR is overtly political is less clear to me
> than to you. My first reading was similar to my current reading and that
>  includes the fact that GR is the most politically confrontational work I
> have ever read. It challenges core myths about the uniqueness of WW2 as a
> good war, an heroic fight to end fascism. So much of the moral
> justification of the wars by the western powers since ww2 have hinged on
> that myth; so many assaults on liberty and self-determination have been
> promoted as ww2 style heroism. It hasn’t stopped; the language of heroism
> and sacrifice get louder and louder as it becomes less and less applicable,
> the hypocrisy harder to hide.
>   I see ATD, M&D and GR as satiric masterworks which mock our self
> aggrandizing cultural stories, each book exploring key facets of cultural
> myths and history along with  personal stories of how those myths play out
> on a human scale .
>   I have a hard time seeing the overtness of political ideas in ATD being
> different or more direct. My experience is one of layered artfulness that
> seems well seasoned in the sage flavors of experience and depth.
>
>
>
>
> > On Apr 30, 2016, at 2:38 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > The politics of GR are rich and complex, and indeterminate, because its
> indictments are of the structure of everything, not just political.
> >
> > When the anarchists were playing no-rules golf in ATD, all I could do
> was wish I hadn't read that.
> >
> > David Morris
> >
> > On Sat, Apr 30, 2016 at 5:37 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > Not for the first time, do Morris and I disagree about Against the Day.
> I think it is far better
> > than I think he does; and "the politics' is essential to it----but the
> 'overt' politics are not even close
> > to what Kirsch says the author's political vision is in Against the Day.
> >
> > And the politics in Against the Day is far less 'overt', I say, than
> 'the politics" of GR, which are
> > positively In- Our-Face (if we look up) yet not a detraction but a
> raising up of GR to Art.
> >
> > On Fri, Apr 29, 2016 at 12:25 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > The politics in ATD was often a detraction from the art.  Overt politics
> tends to do that.
> >
> > David Morris
> >
> > On Fri, Apr 29, 2016 at 10:35 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > Adam Kirsch, an estimable critic in general, is on record dissing
> Against the Day because of its bad politics---violent anarchism, domestic
> terrorism, the authors' positions, etc.....as he misread it.
> >
> > On Fri, Apr 29, 2016 at 11:05 AM, Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/01/books/review/can-a-book-with-bad-politics-be-a-good-book.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fbooks&action=click&contentCollection=books&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=8&pgtype=sectionfront
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>
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