MDMD(4) p.123 small re-write

[Thomas Eckhardt]

I hope I am not completely misled or stating the obvious, but isn't it also
possible to read "essential Term" as referring to a contract between
slave-owner and slave? This would be a very common idea in Pynchon, I
believe, although a rather complex one. There are some other instances of
the "contract-image" in MD: There is a contract between oneself and the city
(London) mentioned somewhere, and there is also a "compact" between
Maskelyne and St. Helena (182). 

What also comes to my mind is the scene of Foppl's "epiphany" in V., where
he perceives the killing of an Herero as an act of uniting "the destroyer
and the destroyed". The implication in the context of V. is, I believe, that
only the oppressor is feeling this kind of "community" with the victim. To
him in this moment everything makes sense, whereas the victim feels the
complete meaninglessness of his/her death. 
Thomas Eckhardt


                             The clouds didn't look like cotton,
                             they didn't even look like clouds.

                             Townes Van Zandt