instinctiveness/rauhandel

[John.Hamill at vuw.ac.nz]

>The reference to Rauhandel (Viking p.98), Blicero's footballing athletic god
>from the 1920s or 30s, has always interested me.  Is Pynchon simply
>constructing an Aryan ideal for Weissmann and other Germans to worship
>(whether politically, or athletically, or for his body), and therefore to
>underscore certain proto-Nazi race theories about superiority?  Or, was there
>a real Rauhandel who fulfilled for Germans what Babe Ruth, Red Grange, or
>Jesse Owens fulfilled for Americans?  Anyone out there with access to German
>football records could probably answer the factual question; the interpretive
>question is one we could discuss.

>Duffy

Sorry, I can't really help with this one in terms of historical accuracy.

My feeling about the interpretative question is that the idea of 
"Rauhandel" is more complicated than the idea of the Aryan ideal, and
the proto-Nazi youth movements although this, seems to be fairly
important in considering the ethical implications of an uncritical
worshipping of the intuitive.  "Its reflexes you see... Not me JUst the 
reflexes" (Viking, 98).  It seems to me that in the context of the passage
Weissman associates himself with Rauhandel on quite a complex
level.  He associates his own sense of separation from his own
Transexual/Witch/cannibal body with the intuitive "skill" of the athlete who
feels separate from the ability of his muscles to coordinate with 
such skill.

	No matter what flesh there was there to appease the
	Witch, cannibal, sorcerer [...] He doesn't even
	even know the witch, can't understand the hunger that
	defines him/her, is only, in times of weakness, bewildered
	that it should coexist in the same body as himself.
	An athlete and his skill, separate awarenesses. (Viking, 98)

There is of course, the ironic undercurrent in the passage which, suggests
that the attraction that Rauhandel  holds for Weissman is not
restricted to the mystical association with "the special gift" but 
also a lusting after the body... which means that his attitude towards
Rauhandel moves from "lust to sorrow" when he realizes the fated way
in which Rauhandel is to be cannon fodder.  Pynchon again plays 
with mirrors in the relation between football and Ufa theatre, football
player and canon fodder.  Weissman's disillusionment is based on
the realization that the "special gift" in this case is just being used
by "Them" (more mirrors with Slothrop's special gift).  The option which
Weissman takes is therefore separate from all those "hundreds of thousands"
of "Rauhandels", he  "wants the Change".  At this point we have to
consider the role of Rilke, in this entanglement of Wandervogel 
fascism...

In short:

Weissman realizes that intuitive skill in itself leaves you 
open to being used as cannon fodder.

A consideration of Deleuze might be very useful at this point... "becoming...
[fill in the gap]"?

Well there's my penny's worth

John Hamill.