Fwd: Regarding them Traverses...

[Joseph Tracy]

-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: 	Re: Regarding them Traverses...
Date: 	Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:19:19 -0400
From: 	Joseph Tracy <coypoet at mailfence.com>
Organization: 	www.brooksideglassworks.com
To: 	Michael Bailey <mi256118 at ucf.edu>



I disagree. First that sabotaging trains, which Pynchon is clearly 
identifying thoughout ATD as a force of colonialism, extraction, 
imperial control and violence, is violence. There is no citation that he 
has killed anyone.   He sees the violence of the plutocrats and is 
committed to resisting it but fails to understand that his children , 
particularly Lake and Kit need the same freedom he longs for, needs the 
gentleness that he has lost in his too private war. Rather than reckon 
with that primary responsibility of a parent, he cuts them off as though 
they should understand him without him being honest and real about his 
life..

In many ways what he is engaged in is a religious war far too 
reminiscent of warring factions within the Abrahamic tradition. This is 
fairly obvious in his relation with Moss Gatlin, preacher of holy war.
  How can most of us judge him? If you pay taxes to the US government, 
in practice you support genocidal violence whether you support it 
intellectually or not. This is the practical nature of beliefs in and 
loyalties to great historic systems in a warring world. Personal 
kindness and personal non-violence will do nothing practical to stop the 
violence you regularly pay for. It requires a more costly resistance, at 
least according to Gandhi or King.

Also it is backward to look at Webb Traverse as the source of the 
primary violence in his world. He is the one who is brutally murdered by 
hired thugs. He is the one severely exploited by the corporate interests 
and legal system.  He is the one whose son is bought by a sick plutocrat 
needing more talented scientific minds in his business.

The Traverses seem to me to represent the hardships of resistance to 
exploitive powers that is the lot of many humans throughout history. 
Their lives are incredibly rich and human, and their struggle goes on 
and continues in Vineland.

On 6/20/26 10:54 PM, Michael Bailey via Pynchon-l wrote:
> Webb's ideal, labor value, certainly is on the right
> track and a great praxis could emerge around that,
> but it bogs down in his embrace of violence - at least, that's a 
> reasonable interpretation of the action, isn't it?
>
> Am I one of those people who has a saying for everything? Like Jimmy 
> Durante, with a million of 'em? Like, here, "Ends don't justify means;
> au contraire, means determine/shape/arc towards/have a fatality for 
> their own ends!"
>
> Buddenbrooks - haven't read it, maybe some time.
> Is it good?
>
> ________________________________
> From: Pynchon-l <pynchon-l-bounces at waste.org> on behalf of Mark Kohut 
> <mark.kohut at gmail.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, June 16, 2026 6:55 AM
> To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Subject: Regarding them Traverses...
>
> I have always felt---little evidence and haven't tried to find any---that
> the family decline
> of the Traverses as worked out in Against the Day, was inspired by the
> decline of the
> Buddenbrooks family in Mann's work, the one cited by the Nobel Committee
> even over *The Magic Mountain.... *
>
> Speaking of that mountain of sickness, Olga Tokarczuk's* The Empusium, 
> *which
> is in the answer song tradition, so to borrow allusively,
> where I can see some pynchonian themes and even a trope or two...some
> effects of modernity to generalize
> --
> Pynchon-L: 
> https://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwaste.org%2Fmailman%2Flistinfo%2Fpynchon-l&data=05%7C02%7Cmi256118%40ucf.edu%7C27021d7d44684343243b08decb95d836%7Cbb932f15ef3842ba91fcf3c59d5dd1f1%7C0%7C0%7C639172041603725105%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=rgoZETPiXq6sYPkdGIr34AYOV6OUp4JmqaXGNnHx4Ig%3D&reserved=0<https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l>
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l