Pynchon's Russia--US

[Joseph Tracy]

OK, I’ll bite. The general impression P gives of Russians is cynical acceptance of corruption where resistance takes the form of monkey wrenching and watching out for yourself and those you care about. There is a certain feeling of waiting for big systems to fail even more completely apart, but only  the barest hints of  hope for positive revolutionary changes, and I may be imagining that. Could be interesting to look more closely at the texts themselves. There is a weird consistency between the Russians in GR and BE, no?  
  The Russians I am closest to are different. Very honest, good to their employees, believers in democracy, intensely family oriented, but lots of individual differences. I think P leaves out the weird influence of Russian Orthodoxy on many Russsians in the Russians he chooses to personify.  
> On Jan 31, 2019, at 3:42 PM, Thomas Eckhardt <thomas.eckhardt at uni-bonn.de> wrote:
> 
> And, of course, in GR...
> 
> Am 31.01.2019 um 21:41 schrieb Mark Kohut:
>> And in AtD....
>> On Thu, Jan 31, 2019 at 3:20 PM Thomas Eckhardt <thomas.eckhardt at uni-bonn.de <mailto:thomas.eckhardt at uni-bonn.de>> wrote:
>>    The ending of VL comes to mind. And, of course, the Russians in BE.
>>    Could be interesting to have a closer look.
>>    Here is Allen Ginsberg on the subject:
>>    "America you don’t really want to go to war.
>>    America its them bad Russians.
>>    Them Russians them Russians and them Chinamen. And them Russians.
>>    The Russia wants to eat us alive. The Russia’s power mad. She wants to
>>    take our cars from out our garages.
>>    Her wants to grab Chicago. Her needs a Red Reader’s Digest. Her wants
>>    our auto plants in Siberia. Him big bureaucracy running our
>>    fillingstations.
>>    That no good. Ugh. Him make Indians learn read. Him need big black
>>    niggers. Hah. Her make us all work sixteen hours a day. Help.
>>    America this is quite serious.
>>    America this is the impression I get from looking in the television set.
>>    America is this correct?"
>>    https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49305/america-56d22b41f119f
>>    (Why the peculiar grammar? At the beginning, with "Them Russians", it
>>    appears to be a satirical jibe at not particularly bright US-Americans
>>    watching the news on the TV set, but "That no good" is Black
>>    Vernacular,
>>    no? And "Her"?)
>>    For those in the Midwest: Keep warm!
>>    Am 28.01.2019 um 12:43 schrieb Mark Kohut:
>>     > First, sorry that this scan of the picture is sideways....I
>>    thought I could
>>     > turn it right side up but I don't know how.Just turn your head a
>>    little--or
>>     > your phone/computer, haha.
>>     >   Second, remember *The Realist *rag?---if you are old enough.
>>     > Third and most substantively, and the reason I scanned this,
>>    think about P
>>     > and his oeuvre-length geopolitical doubling of the USA and
>>    Russia-- and
>>     > here, in 1962, The Cold War about to have its hottest
>>    moments....and what a
>>     > cartoon, eh?
>>     >
>>     >  From a paperback of the sixties, THE NEW RADICALS, a collection.
>>     >
>>     >
>>     > Please open the attached document. It was scanned and sent to you
>>    using a
>>     > Xerox WorkCentre. For more information on Xerox products and
>>    solutions,
>>     > please visit http://www.xerox.com.
>>     > --
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>>     >
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