GRGR: Weissmann WAS Re: Today in History

[Terrance F. Flaherty]

"Pokler saw that one earpiece of his glasses was held on
with a paper clip. His desk was a litter of documents,
reports, reference books. It was a surprise to see him
looking less diabolical than harassed as any civil servant
under pressure." GR.427

A direct contrast with our hero, TS, whom we meet first as
parts (his desk), Pynchon's favorite parts assembled and
returning. Here Weissman is a bureaucrat of the highest
order, the bureaucracy, orders, assembles, institutionalizes
the Death-Kingdom. The irony, it seems, is that the rational
structure, here assembled, literally in abstracts on
Weissman's desk, belies the irrational objectives of the
bureaucracy. Weismman is a Kurtzian figure, but unlike
Conrad's Kurtz, whose participation in unspeakable Rites, we
can only imagine, Weismann/Blicero engages in, directs,
articulates, these rites and his rationalizations of these
rites. His evilness, he is the zones "worst spectre," is
"legitimated" through the bureaucracy, which, as we can see,
as in the above quote, this time through the eyes of Pokler,
attempts to reduce his horror, oh the horror. 

TF 

Doug Millison wrote:
> 
> At 9:00 AM -0400 10/17/99, Paul Mackin asked, of Weissmann:
> >But forget good and evil. Is he a guy you might like to have a beer with?
> >
> >(to pose a pynchonian question)
> 
> I definitely wouldn't want my 12-year-old son to have a beer with him.
> It's a tribute to TRP's great talent and skill that he can make a sadistic,
> imperialist child abuser an attractive character.
> 
> d  o  u  g    m  i  l  l  i  s  o  n
> http://www.dougmillison.com
> http://www.online-journalist.com