Politics vs Art

[Mark Kohut]

yes, that would be a very worthy project. And I will suggest that his
perspective is visible in many other ways that direct authorial comment as
well.
I think we would see many examples of ethical, moral outrage as well. GR is
a righteously angry work.

On Tue, May 3, 2016 at 10:29 AM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:

> It would reallly be a worthy project in this reading of GR to collect
> these authorial comments. Perhaps to spend some time to look at them as a
> whole. Perhaps this collection has been done by a Pynchon critic? In my
> memory these comments paint a grim picture of the anti-democratic,
> anti-love nature of the reigning bureaucracies that dominate western
> culture. But, while they would, for most people constitute a scathing
> critique, they are often, as I remember, more descriptive than
> prescriptive. They are precise and matter of fact, not examples of ethical
> outrage.
>   To my mind P’s reluctance to tell us what to think or feel makes his
> picture of the shaping realities of WW2 and our own time  something we
> must  grapple with on a deeper level than agreement or disagreement.  Why
> do we agree, why is this loathesome, stupid, inspiring, natural? Can humans
> find common ground or a personal basis for a life that is fulfilling and a
> way of being and relating that is more than just alignment with a
> convenient power block, a directionless empire of buying selling killing
> fucking collecting, and getting bought sold killed fucked and collected?
>   To my mind if there is something  that changes positively from GR to ATD
> or M&D, VL it is a movement beyond the estrangement of youth and
> particularly the estrangement from community that happens when you realize
> you are deeply at odds with the philosophies and values of your time. Some
> of this estrangement in GR has to do with war itself, how it forces people
> into a very lonely confrontation with death, where they are asked in the
> blossom of personal identity to sacrifice a life they have barely begun to
> explore for a cause they have no way of truly understanding and which may
> be no more than mass propaganda.
>
>
> > On May 3, 2016, at 8:56 AM, Mike Weaver <mike.weaver at zen.co.uk> wrote:
> >
> > DM:" Pynchon never overtly says fascism or colonialism and the violence
> and self centered egotism produced by these mindsets are destructive,
> blinding, seductive, evil."
> >
> > Oh yes he does. The branch office in our brain piece is the most
> obvious, but interspersed through the book are other little outbreaks of
> authorial comment, of frustration, exasperation and rage at Their
> destructive ways.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > -
> > Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>
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