Re: M&D, the people’s memory vs the internet

[Joseph Tracy]

Nicely considered. I like the new land metaphor and remember the excitement of the time. 

You are obiously right that there is a large element of unreality and romanticism in memory, but it is also tremendously powerful, shaping ideas from generation to generation, mythos and anecdote as powerful as guns and butter. 

There is a sense that in America, for good or perhaps more often not, the people’s memories are the battleground of change or stasis. What Cherrycoke does in the course of his story that endears him more and more to me as a reader is engage with his audience, acknowledge his inventions, expose his inner leanings, and turn a kind of rich nuanced humor and compassion toward his subjects.  Don’t we all long for teachers and story tellers as confused and human and marked by reality as he is? 

I believe it is Pynchon himself we are seeing in CherryCoke, Pynchon as an invention and Pynchon as a real person.


> On Apr 19, 2018, at 6:04 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> One perhaps too simple take I have is:
> 
> Cherrycoke's people's memory is romanticized and irreal.
> 
> The internet, as it belongs to the people, stores all the romanticized,
> gossipy, half-truth history we can ever get.
> It was once another new frontier; it was once a new land but.......
> 
> On Wed, Apr 18, 2018 at 1:47 PM, Smoke Teff <smoketeff at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> Memory, Cherrycoke tells us, belongs to the people.
>> 
>> Anyone have any thoughts on how the internet, the right to be forgotten,
>> and/or Bleeding Edge play into this?
>> --
>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>> 
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l