Thomas Pynchon Shows Us How White Writers Can Avoid Appropriation

Isn't there something in GR about white people being racist because they associate brown skin with shit?

and don't forget there's the shit fetish scene as well as a long passage describing a white man crawling through the sewers to get to freedom

doubtful, subhumans get last priority for their chosen afterlives. more likely Gahenom or Tartarus for the lot of you. But, then again all you have to do is stop laughing every time one of your ancestors’ blood sacrifices is unveiled.

Let's start memeing Pynchon as an SJW. Find incredibly out of context quotes, and let's make this board great again

why would the name conjure images of black students wearing polos? he probably meant black turtlenecks but since he sucks at writing that's not what he wrote

Pynchon is primarily a satirist and culture critic. He relies not on answers, but on the questions he provides. Evidenced by his belief in paranoia, he can't be an ideologue. He distrusts both individuals and groups.

If we were to impose ideology onto him, I believe he would be most in defense but also most critical of the free market, because his characters are driven by conflicting self-interests and stupid luck

he always goes on and on sympathetically about west coast organized labor, you must be a real brainlet not to get that

If you read GR, it's pretty obv that Pynchon has some amount of disdain towards those racist against black people in America, and compassion himself.

>whitey is responsible for all evils in the world because non-whites are both totally equal but at the same time our agency-free pets

How can you appropriate blacks in writing when blacks never invented a written language?
These people spew a fairy tale about history, writen solely from the white side(because the blacks recorded no history) painting everything done as villainous. So all black on black interaction is ignored, their own domestic slave trades or abuse or raids or wars are all assumed to not exist.

Do these rich white liberals live anywhere near the animals they champion? No, they live among the whites they claim to hate. One day these scum will get their deserved death.

Thoughtful article, genuinely appreciated reading it.

For the /pol/acks who couldn't see past the author's occasional soapboxing (or the anons who are just too lazy to read the thing), the basic thesis was "Write what you know."

The author praises Pynchon for writing about colonialism from a colonialist perspective, and tackling the conflict between the self-interest of soldiers and slave-owners and the moral guilt their actions leave them with.

The author praises Pynchon for writing about black characters displaced by war, like Pynchon himself, who had to leave his homeland to fight in WW2.

The author criticizes other authors for writing about stereotyped, destitute African poverty, and for writing quasi-journalistic accounts of Africa as-is, because those authors aren't expressing themselves authentically.

Of course, all this goes off the rails when the author ends the essay with a call for white authors to "get out of the way," but the actual substance of her argument is just "Write what you know."

Even if you disagree with her ideology, she makes some valid points about how great writing comes from an author reproducing the same experiences, perspectives, etc. that he/she has had herself.

Wow, I completely read GR differently than everyone here. I took him to be saying that the black movements in the sixties and all were futile protestations organized and allowed by higher powers to let the subjected think that their future was actually pliable

this. his dominant theme in all that i've read of him (v. tcol49, GR, M&D) is that bigger powers control everything, so it's all futile but also that you should keep fighting nonsensically (absurdly desu)

Pynchon was 8 years old when WW2 ended.

naw

>ike Pynchon himself, who had to leave his homeland to fight in WW2.

are you retarded? pynchon didn't fight in world war 2, but then again you can tell that blogger is a retard from the first sentence as i pointed out above

What the hell does an out of touch commie like Pynchon know about colonialism? Or about the behavior of black africans?
It's people like him who would want real documentaries of Africa banned because they portray Africans in a bad light.
See: Africa Addio
They hand Africa over to the communist negros, who engage in mass slaughter & mass destruction, then they blame whitey for all of it.

The article is not even by a black
who are these white liberals to preach about stuff that happened long before they were born ?

Would the savages have spared any whites they caught? Not goddamn likely, but I guess its a genocide because evil whitey wouldn't accept their own deaths.

All of his books are very left wing but he's more of a conscious social democrat than a communist

How the fuck did you not get this by reading GR or fucking M&D? Christ I thought everyone had read Inherent Vice and Crying of Lot 49 at the very least.

I always thought /pol/ kids on Veeky Forums were just shitposting. The meme trilogy were all written by socially conscious white dudes raging against the societal structures that crippled human souls

>The meme trilogy were all written by socially conscious white dudes raging against the societal structures that crippled human souls

How over educated do you have to be to write garbage like this.

not very desu

>Jim Crowe, wage slavery, slavery, union busting, gentrification, CIA drug epidemic isn’t soul crushing
lol yup mommy and daddy’s $800,000 home is reality

>gentrification

Is a meme.

Black people face enormous issues in the US, but focusing on a nonexistent one will only waste time and energy.

You just have to have actually read Ulysses, Gravity's Rainbow, and Infinite Jest at any point of your life. So I guess pretty fucking over-educated by your standards. Why are you here?

>over educated

You clearly haven't ever read anything to begin with, so I don't know if we can take your concept of "over education" as legitimate

t. I have never lived in a large metropolitan area and all my friends wear khakis on the weekends

>Black people face enormous issues in the US

t. learned about black people in college and from my drug dealer

triggered over educated liberals
wow life and work is so soul crushing! It was so totally different for people living in a preindustrial society! Or for the non-white savages we idolize(from a safe distance ofc)!

>t. I have never lived in a large metropolitan area

Wow Miami isn't a large metropolitan area, who could've fucking thunk it.

slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/01/the_gentrification_myth_it_s_rare_and_not_as_bad_for_the_poor_as_people.html

theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/06/gentrification-bad-word/396908/

economist.com/news/united-states/21644164-gentrification-good-poor-bring-hipsters

gentrification is a multifaceted phenomenon about urban development and displacement which creates effects beyond nice shops and shit. it's real bro. Even whitey is effected.

YOU LIBERALS are fully responsible for gentrification
You wanted an end to segregation, this destroyed whole cities, and now the shoe is on the other foot, rich liberals moving in raising rents....

Guess its ok for blacks to complain about non-blacks flooding in if it inconveniences them huh

damn all that ideology in one post disguised as realism. see ya when you get your GED, friendo.

i can smell your room from here

>gentrification is a multifaceted phenomenon about urban development
Once upon a time communities existed, liberals destroyed them because communities are a racist concept.
Now 60 years onward, liberals want to pretend they aren't the cause of it all, and that in fact their liberal agendas of the past were racist.

Wrong, he's a liberal

Am I supposed to be surprised that he's got a left bent? The dude grew up in the 60s and 70s and rolled with hippies and the beatniks and is a postmodernist writer. I'd be more surprised if he wasn't a lefty.

Its one thing to be a commie when you are 20 and addicted to LSD
It's quite another to remain a commie at 80, after seeing your home country flooded with foreigners, and the independence revolutions of Africa that he championed lead only to destruction.

low effort bait.

>addicted to LSD
Had a laugh, mate, thanks

>/pol/ proves it still can't read anything that doesn't align with its political views
>reality is my ideology and these people are blind!
No one in this thread said life was better in a pre-industrial society. You are attacking boogymen and hate literature. Leave this board.

Shocking! You googled gentrification and posted articles that align with your opinions. I could do the same, but you wouldn't read them. How about a response written by one of the same sources which you cite, explaining one aspect of the complications of massive human migration?

theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/12/the-criminalization-of-gentrifying-neighborhoods/548837/

/pol/'s favorite defense: everyone that calls out their bullshit must be a libhral! Leave this board; go read books.

uhh yeah the communist rule that has reigned in america the last 60 years have really ruined the country

Supposing he was a completely full blown turbo commie, what should I do about it? Close myself off to literature I enjoy simply because the author doesn't align with my views? Should I close myself off to the opinions and thoughts of people who don't share my views?

I read lots of books
I don't try to pretend you get fucking life lessons from some delusional rich white communist like Pynchon who writes books ironically

>I read lots of books

(Hasn't read a book since he graduated from the 11th grade, btw)

I read sci-fi and fantasy

>(Hasn't read a book since he graduated from the 11th grade, btw)
(is a gay doo doo head, btw)

Believe me it shows

Says the g uy who reads "post-modernist literature" for "the great prose"

Can someone tweet this thread @ the author of the article? No tengo twitter

>thinking this is an insult

It was meant as praise in a neo-ironic sort of way

>gets triggered enough by SJWs to throw away their books after buying them

non whites are equal to whites. non whites possess agency. agency is different from privilege. get your basic theory straight, kid. you're outing yourself as 19

>everyone is calling me on my bullshit
>i should insinuate they've all been triggered by my brave and pithy truthtelling
you know you're losing the war when you resort to insulting the opponent for reading too much. go back to the hills, hillbilly

please tell me how it's the immigrants who are taking your jobs, and not the capitalists and robots and automated technology

>what does a guy who served in the navy and worked for multiple military industrial companies before becoming a writer of esoteric and heavily researched fiction no about people I hate? He should hate those people more, watch these documentaries and learn to be disgusted like me

How can PRIVILEGE exist if they are equal & fully capable human beings?

my dude's an anarchist. i think "social democrat" is a little bit of an oversimplification

This is a very leftist point of view, as long as you don't think the left = the democratic party.

>I care so much about the poor, and the down trodden, and the oppressed, and the mistreated, and the neglected, and the dispossessed
>BY THE WAY GO KILL YOURSELF YOU POOR WHITE TRASH GARBAGE

I know its hard to think outside your little ideological box, but do try huh
Where is your empathy and open mindedness huh? If you can't even conceive the thought process of people who are like you, such as right wing whites, how do you imagine you understand the thinking of racially alien foreigners?

Which one should I read for the labor movement stuff? I read Stegner’s Joe Hill a couple years ago and enjoyed it.

That's a far, far left attitude

>has no idea what the left/right dichotomy means and also can't recognize the difference between prescription and reaction

This just makes me hate Pynchon even more, as if it were even possible

Yeah dude talking about history is wrong

What is Pynchon?

Is this man regarded anywhere else, but internet forums like Veeky Forums and reddit?

>>BY THE WAY GO KILL YOURSELF YOU POOR WHITE TRASH GARBAGE
They may go on about empathy, but they actually have very little of it.
Yeah, he's popular among critics. Harold Bloom likes his books I that means anything.

>2017
>caring about inferior life forms

I love how lefty Veeky Forums is getting. Let's throw out all these /pol/tards from here. Intellectualism doesn't belong to the right wing. It never has, it never will.

Intellectualism is a spook, and affirming it renders you sterile.

>how lefty Veeky Forums is getting
guess how I know you're new here

Lit was left/"centrist" before christposting got popular. /pol/ kids just pushing us further and further that way

Speak for yourself.

holy shit you're so dumb user, unless this is like double-bait in which case excuse me

/pol/tard sjw whiners epicly satirized! like a boss xD

>reading three books is considered over-education in America

>tfw the only conservative postmodern author was David Foster Wallace and all of the rest are filthy liberals.

I wonder if you'd still think that if you read his (very short) essay "Just Asking"

The great thing about DFW is that he’s constantly contradicting himself, privately he was very traditional/conservative in his views.

Yes, I know. He literally thought he was Kafka and Wittgenstein personally, but his author personality was like street smart critical theory Gen X New Left, or, Gen X Rorty

>The writer known as "Pynchon" actually exists.
Congrats on falling for the biggest psyop in American history, fags.

why don't you climb into a v2 and have someone launch you at a cinema?

> let's troll the shit out of this
> and let's make this board great again

you just arrived, didn't you? /s4s/ is over there. bye!

>There is a particular set of circumstances that authorized Pynchon’s telling of the event, circumstances which do not exist today. For starters, there weren’t any Herero (or Namibian, for that matter) writers of fiction who had prominently addressed the genocide at the time of his novels. In the ’60s and ’70s there was no internet, nor the masses of scholarship we take for granted. In such circumstances, it was almost a moral imperative to write the genocide down—repeatedly, in Pynchon’s case—to draw attention to it again and again.

Pynchon was "authorized" to write about the Herero because there weren't any Herero writers at the time; if there had been, then he would not have been "authorized" to write about it. But because there was no internet, and no Namibian writers, nobody even knew about the Herero so Pynchon was compelled, required by law even, to write about them and how they got their shit pushed in by ebil rayciss pre-Nazi Nazis

>I thought, okay, this is obviously a very cool book with proper lefty sentiments

Thank God it didn't offend her sense of propriety

>When I first read V., though, I was taken aback by the sudden change of scene. What is this, I thought, Pynchon’s ‘Out of Africa’ fantasy? I was deeply skeptical about this white man, not to mention tired and afraid.

"I was afraid, literally shaking, as I contemplated the racism I was about to confront, and the outrage it would inevitably generate."

>Later that same year, 2016, we would all hear Lionel Shriver’s speech on how the concept of cultural appropriation was just stupid. She praised bestselling author Chris Cleave—white, British—for his “courage” in creating “Little Bee,” a fourteen-year-old Nigerian asylum seeker in his book of the same name. She scoffed at the critics who believe Cleave was wrong to appropriate such a story for himself, because “they are his characters, to be manipulated at his whim, to fulfill whatever purpose he cares to put them to […] It’s his book, and he made her up. The character is his creature, to be exploited up a storm.” It felt like an imperial slap in the face—but it didn’t surprise me.

Holy shit, I can't even mock this anymore. Literally shitting on a white leftist author because his pro-refugee propaganda was racist because he wrote about a nonwhite character. "Controlling" the actions of a fictional negress is Imperialism. I just imagined Morgan Freeman being shoved into a gas-chamber, I guess that makes me Cecil Rhodes.

Kudos, OP, for forcing me to acknowledge that people like this actually exist.

"Gentrification" means ghetto blacks get shoved out into the formerly white suburbs that they once wanted to live in but now are considered shitholes because nobody lives there but ghetto blacks. Essentially, economic reality butting into social fantasies of two groups, white liberals (who wanted "cultural" edgy avant garde neighborhoods, but got instead a bunch of white liberals looking for the same) and ghetto blacks (who basically just want drugs, cars, and sneakers without having to pay for them, and instead get racist boolsheit like drug-tests at the parole office and poe-lees gettin up in they grills for selling foodstamps). Meanwhile the white working class gets to watch their neighborhoods become surrounded by black and hispanic ghettos as the wealthy liberals leave them behind, too poor to follow but not poor enough to live off free shit.

And then get lectured by affluent marxists about their privilege.

I'm glad I could never get into his pointless ramblings.

if you know them I guess they weren't that private

If the left is so intellectual, why is it so stupid and wrong about every false ideal it champions? Why does everything it pushes cause destruction?
>HMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

It is funny watching a libtard try and seize "intellectualism" from people he doesn't agree with, which is both contrary to the nature of being intellectual and a hilarious addition of 'ism' to the end, which libtards love to do.
The only 'ism' you lay exclusive claim to is 'moronism,' commie.

>Alexandra d'Abbadie

Yeah OP, thanks for sharing yet another piece of provocative garbage. God I wish I had a pussy at times. Self-indulgent moral posturing gets you anywhere in humanities.

>Its one thing to be a commie when you are 20 and addicted to LSD
wow it's 1969 (ok) again

>If you're so smart, then why are you so stupid?

>being this sheltered
Slit your throat, maggot. You're never gonna make it in the real world, with or without a pussy; you definitely lack the balls.

>The only 'ism' you lay exclusive claim to is 'moronism,' commie
Well the only ISM you lay EXCLUSIVE CLAIMS to is STUPIDISM, capitalist huehuehue