BEg2 ch 30 aftermath paragraph 1

[Michael Bailey]

Mark Kohut wrote:

“I only read the line "There can be no question where Pynchon's
sympathies lie" and I do not believe it as written.

“Not the Pynchon I read or what many say here as we explore his richness of
ambiguity and meanings.”


If you only read the one line, you missed most of a fine post.

It hadn’t occurred to me to place Pynchon on either side of a
bifurcation between official prose and poesy -

I figure he’s well read enough to straddle that divide and then some.

He served in the Navy and has never shrunk from contemplation of the
indubitable facts of ongoing military operations - his essay on how
people seek out strong leadership when threatened doesn’t actually
castigate that tendency, but gently points out that overreacting in
that direction is also dangerous.

I’d argue that while the “aftermath” paragraphs, and the rest of the
novel, show the nettlesome & expensive annoyances of the official
response, they are rational, relatively calm, and make well-reasoned
points against fallacies in *either* the “official line” or any of the
myriad variations  -

Also, a person “cranked up, scared, and helpless,” is - like Maxine’s
rodent dream - realizing vulnerability in a way that isn’t unwarranted
and may not have occurred to them. If fortunate enough to survive,
they will be alert in a way that they never were before.


I admire the part I think is the heart of Thomas’s post, which is to
put the ch30 comments on narratives and sourcing in a context with the
“history” ideas from M&D - that certainly seems to “stimmt”


It’s easy and safe to comment on government/military overreach when
it’s in the past, or in foreign lands.

Reverend Cherrycoke found that criticizing current local abuses is
fraught with peril. He’s the source of the relevant quotes in M&D and
while Pynchon obviously has a penchant for the fabulistic viewpoints,
and so forth, I think Cherrycoke only partly reflects his viewpoint.

I think Pynchon is smarter than Cherrycoke, with a time-tested
critique and method whose partly outrageous nature embraces heretical
and “accepted” viewpoints, placing them both within a rational and
factual context that clear thinkers of any political wing cannot help
but admire.

(Although, like Cherrycoke, he did “ship out” for awhile) (and in
fairness to Cherrycoke, Pynchon lives in a more accepting time)