Response to Steven Weisenburger's Response

Abstract

<p>To be taken to task for a turn of phrase by someone whose work I've long admired leaves me feeling a little bit like the kitten who's lost her mitten and so shall have no pie. I regret that the opening of my essay left Steven Weisenburger facing both barrels of a volley I meant to fire more broadly. As the most ambitious and visible of the industry's indices, annotations and cross-references, the Companion no doubt catches it oftener than it merits. In my defense, though, there are other types of terrorism than the Taliban variety-and these often more insidious-as anyone who for one reason or another lives outside one or more consumer loops in the United States might readily attest. I had thought that exposing the rich variety of pressures exerted on the average poor bastard to limit his/her behavior and options-and the APB's complicity in this maneuver (as I suggested in my essay) -was a thread that ran throughout Pynchon's novels and other writings.</p><p>Article from Pynchon Notes, Volume 44 - 45, Spring - Fall, 1999, Pages 171-172.</p>