Not P just Pynchon's deepest view of history and its lost possibilities (I say, hyperbolically, not literally, so unbristle)

[Mark Kohut]

“A wise reader reads the book of genius not with his heart, not so much
with his brain, but with his spine. It is there that occurs the telltale
tingle.” ~ Vladimir Nabokov

On Sun, Oct 24, 2021 at 6:28 AM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

> I am so excited in sending this out and I have so much to say that I can't
> say it all and it is already all compact in fragments mentally that I
> surely can't cohere without taking more time. (see Jochen, sometimes it
> is a good thing (maybe) that I act almost impulsively sometimes. Just fyi,
> many posts now marinate a day but not this one. )
>
> First, let me offer this post and review for Joseph, that Plister who
> almost wants me gone, but who recently wrote a judgment of the 'state' that
> this genius has. And which I never disagreed with him about.
>
> And for Morris, with whom I went back and forth with once on this list
> about "anarchism" [in general, and in P] and I think we agreed on the same
> ultimate space---Anarchism is not a 'political philosophy' that can work
> to run states, countries now (and in the recent past) BUT anarchism as
> a possibility within the public space of almost anywhere [ I instantiated
> it as I could into a non-prof in my town] is what Graeber insists upon
> and sees deep in history.  And which is a constant theme in Pynchon's
> life's work, I keep suggesting.  ( David may disagree and will say so if he
> does. )
>
> Graeber's* Debt *is still beyond my understanding--I stopped out---but
> that is my weakness. But I am in his debt for a new understanding of
> anarchism
> and hunters and gatherers and much else in the development of Everything.
> [I used to give a mortar & pestle as a wedding gift; a symbol of moving
> beyond the hunting and gathering phase of youth]
>
> If ANYONE on or off the Plist wants to Group Read this, I'm so IN, I'll
> fall out.
>
> Many many academics in all kinds of disciplines are writing about getting
> this book, waiting for this book---Graeber's reputation was huge and the
> anticipation of this book was even more huge---and are now starting to read
> this book.
>
> I am as excited as an eager freshman again--even as a self
> side-educating high schooler; even more excited than discovering a new
> great writer, the newest Nobelist. (*Afterlives *is real good. Precise
> observation and history and verbal creation of character and situations
> that remind me of Camus or Conrad.)
>
> From the review below:
> "None of these groups, as far as we have reason to believe, resembled the
> simple savages of popular imagination, unselfconscious innocents who dwelt
> within a kind of eternal present or cyclical dreamtime, waiting for the
> Western hand to wake them up and fling them into history."
>
> https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/11/graeber-wengrow-dawn-of-everything-history-humanity/620177/
>