BtZ42 Pynchon. How allegorical a writer is he?

[ish mailian]

In his fine essay, Benton makes judicious use of  the Pynchon Orwell Foreword.

Here's a review
Graham Benton’s “Daydreams and Dynamite: Anarchist Strategies of
Resistance and Paths for Transformation in Against the Day” gives the
most thorough reading of anarchism in Pynchon’s work to date. Benton
takes a brief tour through anarchist philosophy, and looks at how
anarchism factors into Pynchon’s early novels, before demonstrating
howAgainst the Day incorporates both American and European theories of
anarchism throughout its pages. For Benton, “Pynchon explores the
possibilities that a progressive anarchist stand may proffer but also
makes a serious contribution to anarchist discourse by amplifying and
probing the flaws inherent in anarchist theory” (191). As such, the
dynamite in the novel is a complex figure, signifying both anarchist
resistance to capital and the power of capital itself (the Pinkertons
hired by Scarsdale Vibe use it against the anarchists themselves).
Benton also questions Hume’s contention that the novel supports
political violence. Nowhere is it more evident that “Pynchon is […]
attuned to the real human cost of such a [violent] anarchist stance”
than in Reef and Flaco’s bombing of a café, after which they help the
survivors before the police arrive (205). Benton’s historical reading
of anarchism is a welcome one and serves as an excellent buttresses to
the earlier essays dealing with anarchism too. And the essay’s
conclusion, which connects Pynchon’s latest take on anarchism and
terrorism to our contemporary, post 9/11 politics and permanent state
of emergency, reaffirms the timeliness of Pynchon’s “historical”
novel.

http://www.electronicbookreview.com/thread/fictionspresent/Corrupted

On Wed, May 4, 2016 at 6:30 AM, ish mailian <ishmailian at gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks  Mark. The word is Greek, allegoria, double talk, or to speak
> with double meaning or speaking otherwise. And, speaking of double
> talk, Pynchon writes of its uses and abuses in his Foreword to
> Orwell;s _1984_.
>
> P says that _1984_ may have been a victim of the success of Orwell's
> allegory, _Animal Farm_ (I'm paraphrasing from memory, so....), and
> that readers, in 49 and into the Red Scare misread _1984_ as an
> allegory, as an anti-communist tract.
>
> In many ways, _Vineland_, Pynchon most allegorical political satire
> suffers from the same causes, GR (not an allegorical work, though it
> includes much allegory)  and the "Reagan Revolution." Though, of
> course, and perhaps fittingly, the cause and effect are reversed, as
> VL is publish after GR, while AF is publish before 84.
>
> On Tue, May 3, 2016 at 4:57 PM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>> http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2016/05/an_allegory_is_not_the_same_as_a_metaphor_in_praise_of_the_medieval_literary.html
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