Fw: Re: BEg2 ch 30 aftermath paragraph 1

Wed May 25 12:08:24 UTC 2022

I think it is, of course true that he can "straddle both" in his writing
and reading. Since he has written both and
read both (we have to assume and have learned through some textual clues
and solid critical readings of some on Pynchon. There's N.O. Brown, Max
Weber, Erich Fromm and others. A writer forms his vision from what he says,
does, sees and reads, yes? Thinking about it steadily.   He has not
commented on any non-fiction works, has he, in published pieces? I remember
a comment on McLuhan in a letter) .

I think it is also true that he respects the difference, what a good writer
has called the confusion of realms. So respects it
that it is a part of his vision even.

On Wed, May 25, 2022 at 6:47 AM Hübschräuber via Pynchon-l <
pynchon-l at waste.org> wrote:

>
> > > 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.
> >
> >
> > Yep.
> >
> > > 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.
> >
> >
> > Which essay? One of the most pervasive, and controversial as it is often
> > perceived as sexist, features of Pynchon's novels is the trope of the
> need for the
> > strong man, the fascist.
> >
> > In BE, it is not only about people seeking out strong leadership when
> > threatened. This is always the case, as Hermann Göring knew very well:
> >
> > "Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a
> > farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it
> > is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common people
> > don't want war: neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter
> > in Germany. That is understood. But after all it is the leaders of a
> > country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to
> > drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or fascist dictorship,
> > or a parliament or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the
> > people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is
> > easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and
> > denounce the peace makers for lack of patriotism and exposing the
> > country to danger. It works the same in any country."
> >
> > In BE the narrator talks about a "purpose":
> > "The purpose is to get people cranked up in a certain way. Cranked up,
> > scared, and helpless." It is about the conscious manipulation of public
> opinion.
> >
> > Whose objective does it serve to get people "cranked up in a certain
> > way"? It is the objective of those who repeat the phrase "'Ground Zero'
> > over and over." Of those who want the war they had been planning for.
> >
> > The people have earlier been blamed by March, who includes herself in
> > this indictment, for allowing "Bush and his gang" to go on their
> > "rampage". This is an interesting passage. It is from March's weblog and
> > written in what she calls her "old-lefty tirade mode":
> >
> > "'Just to say evil Islamics did it, that's so lame, and we know it. We
> > see those official close-ups on the screen. The shifty liar's look, the
> > twelve-stepper's gleam in the eye. One look at these faces and we know
> > they're guilty of the worst crimes we can imagine. But who's in any
> > hurry to imagine? To make the awful connection? Any more than Germans
> > were back in 1933, when Nazis torched Reichstag within a month of Hitler
> > becoming chancellor. Which of course is not to suggest that Bush and his
> > people have actually gone out and staged the events of 11 September. It
> > would take a mind hopelessly diseased with paranoia, indeed a
> > screamingly anti-American nutcase, even to allow to cross her mind the
> > possibility that that terrible day would have deliberately been
> > engineered as a pretext to impose some endless Orwellian "war" and the
> > emergency decrees we will soon be living under. Nah, nah, perish that
> > thought.
> >
> > 'But there's still always the other thing. Our yearning. Our deep need
> > for it to be true. Somewhere, down at some shameful dark recess of the
> > national soul, we need to feel betrayed, even guilty. As if it was us
> > who created Bush and his gang, Cheney and Rove and Rumsfeld and Feith
> > and the rest of them--we who called down the sacred lightning of
> > 'democracy' and then the fascist majority on the Supreme Court threw the
> > switches, and Bush rose from the slab and began his rampage. And
> > whatever happened then is on our ticket.'"
> >
> > BE, 321-322
> >
> > While the first paragraph is well aligned with what we know about March,
> > the second is distinctly Pynchonian. And it blames everybody for the
> > election of George W. Bush.
> >
> > (This said, I have to admit that I am not quite sure how to parse this
> second paragraph.
> > What do we need to be true? The official narrative? Then why would we at
> > the same time need to feel betrayed? If we need it to be true, and
> > consequently perceive it as true, then why would we feel betrayed?
> > Betrayed by Bush and his gang? But there is no "we" that March belongs
> > to that would have voted for GWB. Perhaps I am just being thick. Can
> anybody explain?)
> >
> > Further below on the same page, Heidi, like Cherrycoke, voices support
> > for narratives from the margins:
> >
> > "'No matter how the official narrative of this turns out,' it seemed to
> > Heidi, 'these are the places we should be looking, not in newspapers or
> > television but at the margins, graffiti, uncontrolled utterances, bad
> > dreamers who sleep in public and scream in their sleep.'"
> >
> > (https://www.nsfwyoutube.com/watch?v=HrQgVRGvLkQ)
> >
> > > 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.
> >
> >
> > As regards the mouse dream: I love that "not that loudly"...
> >
> > > 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.
> >
> >
> > There are enough well-researched facts of "official history" in the
> > Reverend's tale for ten doctorate theses. So indeed, his admonition is
> > to be taken with a huge grain of salt. What Pynchon takes issue with is,
> I suggest, the narrowing down of possibilities to one and only one
> narrative - a process behind which are interests that must "ever prove
> base".
> >
> > As an aside: Still, Pynchon's approach can be
> > highly irreverent. His use of the Montauk story/history/conspiracy
> > theory, in particular the adaptation of the Montauk Project/Montauk Boys
> > conspiracy theory still puzzles me.
> >
> > An article on the Montauk Project that I found interesting:
> >
> > https://allthatsinteresting.com/montauk-project
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>