Gilles Chamerois (University of Brest)
Thomas Pynchon’s novels form in a sense one long western, documenting the way power gains control through experimenting with the very spaces of liberty it temporarily allows. Seen in this light, the Zones, Wedges and underground galleries that abound in the novels are so many topological variations on the Frontier. In Against the Day, of course, these variations immediately follow the official closing of the original Frontier in 1892, and the references to westerns are quite literal. I would like to concentrate more particularly on the role dynamite plays in the novel and the way it is informed by westerns. It may first prove necessary to refer to westerns such as Rio Bravo (1959) by Howard Hawks, Vera Cruz (1954) by Robert Aldrich or The Professionals (1960) by Richard Brooks to show how dynamite can shape events in westerns, helping individuals to win over larger groups or allowing the people to prevail over better-equipped armies, but my main focus will be on the references to Duck, You Sucker, aka A Fistful of Dynamite (1973) by Sergio Leone. They are numerous, from the character of Woolf Tone O’Reilly to the nearly exact quote of the following line, first censored by the American distributors of the film: “Till then, nobody dared take a crack at foreign capitalists, not even Pancho Villa.” The episode of the máquina loca is the most obvious echo between the novel and the film, but perhaps the most Pynchonian are to be found in the parallel between the defence of landed interests and Nazism, and in the acute awareness of the ambiguities of political engagement. What will be of particular interest to us is the way in which dynamite can be a potent model of the workings of the film and of the book, and of their common dream of being able to contain in one volume or in one reel the explosive power of life itself. In the case of the film, historically it required the stabilization of the nitro that entered in its composition, and both Leone’s film and Pynchon’s novel are explosive elements mixed with just enough syntax, that most effective kieselguhr, and with the right detonator can hope to change the world.