BE ch 5 nerd wars

[David Morris]

On Mon, Nov 22, 2021 at 8:31 PM Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:

> Maybe there is some way of explaining history so that  it was not bad to
> slaughter Herero or Dodoes or union organizers, usually for sport, religion
> and profit but I for one am ok with using moral language to address such
> events and the people who participate in them.


And what in the world would we do without you (for one) to point us the way
out of our morasses of moral ambiguity?

 Pynchon gives us different views of such doings from different characters,
> and at times inserts commentary that appears to be his own thoughts, *but
> he doesn't tell us what to think.*


But, thank God, you do.

Pynchon is not outside  the mainstream of great fiction in portraying
> plutocrats and scientists, rulers and low level hired guns who behave
> criminally, immorally, with self-serving violence. From Shakespeare to
> Mararet Atwood, to Melville , Toni Morrison or Tolstoy


Thus we have the complexities of Othello, Hamlet, Lear, Macbeth.  These
were tragedies, not morality plays.  The villains in them were “us.”  Was
Ahab a bad guy?  Was the Judge in Blood Meridian a bad guy?

I don’t think Pynchon’s characters are “too relatable” now (as opposed to
mere ciphers in earlier works).  If they act in ways that mystify us, that
doesn’t automatically make them more complex, either.  But at least those
unexpected responses might generate questions.  Ciphers can also be complex
in complex equations.

David Morris