NP: DeLillo on Trump's America

[Mark Thibodeau]

Wow.

I think the blurb on the back of the book is more pertinent to the
question at hand:

"There are so many temptations for American writers to become part of
the system and part of the structure that now, more than ever, we have
to resist. American writers ought to stand and live in the margins,
and be more dangerous."

That's awesome. And true. And muy, muy Pynchon!

Jerky

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On Wed, Nov 7, 2018 at 8:28 AM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Snippet, all that is obtainable, of an interview with him about *Libra* and
> after.
>
> https://books.google.com/books?id=nIOdBrl1keUC&pg=PA162&dq=DElillo+after+Libra&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjo2MfBsMLeAhUqrlkKHWjgCFsQ6AEIXzAJ#v=onepage&q=DElillo%20after%20Libra&f=false
>
> On Wed, Nov 7, 2018 at 8:13 AM Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
>
> > It does seem hard to believe that Delillo would be particularly troubled
> > by a bad review from George Will, that super american fan of baseball and
> > death squads.
> >
> > > On Nov 7, 2018, at 1:15 AM, Ian Livingston <igrlivingston at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > >
> > > So he's disguised as a Ho Ho but he's really a Ding Dong? Clever fellow.
> > >
> > > On Tue, Nov 6, 2018 at 7:06 PM David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > >> His disguise is as the Wise Conservative pundit.  He (and David Brooks,
> > >> but less so) are treated almost like emeritus professors of serious
> > >> political insight.  Of course it's all media crap.
> > >>
> > >> David Morris
> > >>
> > >> On Tue, Nov 6, 2018 at 8:55 PM Ian Livingston <igrlivingston at gmail.com>
> > >> wrote:
> > >>
> > >>> He's disguised?
> > >>>
> > >>> On Tue, Nov 6, 2018 at 1:40 PM David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > >>>
> > >>>> George Will is just a disguised hack.
> > >>>>
> > >>>> On Tue, Nov 6, 2018 at 3:31 PM Mark Thibodeau <jerkyleboeuf at gmail.com
> > >
> > >>>> wrote:
> > >>>>
> > >>>>> For some reason, my reply seems to have come out all choppy, with the
> > >>>>> bottom paragraph missing.
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> Not to repeat myself, but here is what I TRIED to write:
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> I think the reason why so many of our best thinkers and artists and
> > >>>>> other people who have previously proven to have useful and
> > >>>>> enlightening opinions are having such a hard time getting their
> > brains
> > >>>>> around this historical moment's realpolitik is because their very
> > >>>>> respectability and reputation precludes them from letting their minds
> > >>>>> wander into the territories where today's most successful
> > >>>>> sociopolitical and economic gamesplayers are operating.
> > >>>>> The paranoia of the 70's (and of GR, the Senate Hearings on
> > >>>>> Assassinations, Oglesby's Yankee Cowboy War theory, etc) is probably
> > >>>>> the only paradigm equipped to provide an adequate diagnoses for our
> > >>>>> present ills. Actual, literal sinister conspiracies, shaped by
> > >>>>> fanatics of the occult and the Grand Design, with armies of
> > >>>>> cult-of-violence Gammas as devoted foot-soldiers... start talking
> > >>>>> about these things and you're relegated to the funny pages, mocked
> > for
> > >>>>> the rest of whatever you're allowed to retain of your career.
> > >>>>> I mean, for Pete's sake! Look at what happened when Delillo DARED to
> > >>>>> write his JFK-conspiracy-adjacent novel, LIBRA! Is it any wonder he'd
> > >>>>> be a little gun-shy about wading into these reeking, Satanic fever
> > >>>>> swamps?!
> > >>>>> Maybe in two or three decades we'll be allowed to look back, like we
> > >>>>> looked back on Strangelove not so long ago and realized "Holy shit...
> > >>>>> Kubrick and Southern were more right than wrong about EVERYTHING."
> > And
> > >>>>> then maybe reputations will be rehabilitated (post mortem for most of
> > >>>>> 'em)... and we can all go on being superior and snide again about
> > >>>>> whatever fresh Hell we'll be enduring by then.
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> Jerky
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> PS - As for what happened to Delillo after publishing Libra, he was
> > >>>>> savaged for months in various venues by such literary luminaries as
> > >>>>> George Will, who called the novel "an act of bad citizenship", and
> > >>>>> other right-tilting sources. I remember the clash and tumble, being a
> > >>>>> fan and in university at the time.
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> On Tue, Nov 6, 2018 at 4:07 PM rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>> Delillo went minimal after the brilliance of Libra Mao II and
> > >>>>> Underworld. Zero K is probably the end of that run. it'll be
> > >>>> interesting to
> > >>>>> see what he comes up with.
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>> as for depicting the lunacy of a particular American way of viewing
> > >>>> the
> > >>>>> world (and its violence) currently I can't help but think of the
> > Uncle
> > >>>> Sam
> > >>>>> character in Coover's the Public Burning. It's too bad the novel is
> > >>>> old.
> > >>>>> Sean Hannity and other Fox notables surely would be among the
> > revelers
> > >>>> in
> > >>>>> Times Square.
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>
> > https://www.thedailybeast.com/robert-coovers-70s-novel-the-public-burning-eerily-anticipates-trump
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>> It’s in the “god” of The Public Burning, Uncle Sam, that Coover most
> > >>>>> strikingly foresees Trump and his public. Based partly on Sam Slick,
> > >>>> the
> > >>>>> Yankee peddler, Uncle Sam pretends to be a populist strong man
> > >>>> defending
> > >>>>> American Christianity and protecting the little people from domestic
> > >>>> and
> > >>>>> foreign evil, but in fact Sam is an “incorrigible huckster, a
> > >>>> sweet-talking
> > >>>>> con artist,” a protean shape-shifter, the impure principle of
> > >>>> performance
> > >>>>> and entertainment, controlling characters and events to perpetuate
> > his
> > >>>>> power to control characters and events. It is Sam who moves the
> > >>>> execution
> > >>>>> from the prison at Sing Sing to Times Square where he assembles
> > >>>>> entertainers, officials, and celebrities to create a ceremony that
> > will
> > >>>>> bind Americans together in a spasm of hate and vengeance, a festival
> > >>>> that
> > >>>>> takes to extremes the violent and vile emotions elicited in Trump’s
> > >>>>> rallies. Like Trump, Sam is consistently vulgar in act and speech. He
> > >>>>> strings together others’ phrases, slogans, clichés, and dog whistles
> > >>>> from
> > >>>>> centuries of American jingoism, racism, and misogyny. And also like
> > >>>> Trump,
> > >>>>> Sam has no respect for facts: History, he tells Nixon, “is more or
> > less
> > >>>>> bunk, as Henry Ford liked to say, as saintly and wise a pup as this
> > >>>>> nation’s seen since the Gold Rush—the fatal slantindicular futility
> > of
> > >>>>> Fact! Appearances, my boy, appearances! Practical politics consists
> > in
> > >>>>> ignorin’ facts! Opinion ultimately rules the world!”
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>> On Tue, Nov 6, 2018 at 3:31 PM Thomas Eckhardt <
> > >>>>> thomas.eckhardt at uni-bonn.de> wrote:
> > >>>>>>>
> > >>>>>>> I am curious. What happened to DeLillo after he published "Libra"?
> > >>>>>>>
> > >>>>>>> Kubrick and Southern were, of course, right about everything.
> > >>>>>>>
> > >>>>>>>> I mean, for Pete's sake! Look at what happened when Delillo DARED
> > >>>> to
> > >>>>>>>> write his JFK-conspiracy-adjacent novel, LIBRA! Is it any wonder
> > >>>> he'd
> > >>>>>>>> be a little
> > >>>>>>>> gun-shy about wading into these reeking, Satanic fever swamps?!
> > >>>>>>>>
> > >>>>>>>> Maybe in two or three decades we'll be allowed to look back, like
> > >>>> we
> > >>>>>>>> looked back on Strangelove not so long ago and realized "Holy
> > >>>> shit...
> > >>>>>>>> Kubrick and Southern were more right than wrong about
> > >>>> EVERYTHING." And
> > >>>>>>>> then maybe reputations will be rehabilitated (post mortem for
> > >>>> most of
> > >>>>>>>> 'em)... and we can all go on being superior and snide again about
> > >>>>>>>> whatever fresh Hell we'll be enduring by then.
> > >>>>>>>
> > >>>>>>> --
> > >>>>>>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> > >>>>> --
> > >>>>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> > >>>>>
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>>> --
> > >>>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> > >>>>
> > >>>
> > > --
> > > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> >
> > --
> > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> >
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l