GRGR(11): Shiny Boots of Leather

[Lorentzen / Nicklaus]

 p. 230ff.: Domina Nocturna diciplines Pudding

 
 Since Pointsman is arranging the whole scene in detail (- "sending laxative 
 pills with her meals", p. 235), we actually have another S/M-triade with Katje 
 in the middle. Weissmann & Gottfried on the one side and Pointsman & Pudding, 
 on the other, two asymmetric male couples, are both communicating through 
 Katje's body (that, in this perspective, appears as some kind of a "boundary 
 object"). The fact that Weissman also communicates directly - body to body - 
 with Gottfried shows,  I'd say, that Weissman is not as evil as the cold 
 bureaucrat Pointsman. 

 "He understands that it means to say 'Severin'" (p. 232). This name refers to  
 Sacher-Masoch's S/M-novel "Venus in Furs". Entertaining read. Much more  
 inspired than de Sade's "Justine and Juliette", where everything is so  
 mechanical & philosophical (- and thus, like Burroughs has noticed too,  
 boring). But my favourite S/M-novel is Pauline Réage's  "History of O.". This  
 book is so wild and so poetic: Pure Beauty. In Germany you can only buy it in a 
 "documentary edition". There is a 120 pages interview, not always interesting, 
 and then the text of the novel is given as a "document". Fuck censorship! But  
 at least the text is available. If there's an English edition: Check it out!  
 The best erotica are written by women. Anais Nin's "Delta of Venus" is also 
 very beautiful. 

 Once read a fictive interview with Pynchon in a German S/M-magazine. The text  
 pictured the GR-scenery on the "Anubis" with Slothrop, Bianca & the others  
 celebrating their mindless pleasures while Pynchon is interviewed. It became  
 quite obvious that the author thought Pynchon to be absolutely pro-S/M. Well,  
 this is an interesting point. I also remember reading in an older scientific 
 article on Pynchon (- forgot title and author), that all the S/M-scenes are 
 simple illustrations of the "alienation" in our death-orientated culture. Hmmm. 
 Sounds like if there's ambivalence. On the one side there is the historically 
 rising tendency to the enfetishment of the inanimate. This theme is 
 particularly played in V. And we also have, and this became more important in  
 Vineland and in M&D, the captivity of women. But on the other side there is a  
 certain fascination with these scenes, that are, like the one we are talking 
 about right now, worked out quite neatly. Also in V: 

 "'Lie on the bed. That will be our operating table. You are to get an  
 intermuscular injection'.
 'No', she cried.
 'You have worked on many ways of saying no. No meaning yes. That no I don't 
 like. Say it differently.'
 'No', with a little moan.
 'Different. Again.'
 'No,', this time a smile, eyelids at half-mast.
 'Again.'
 'No.'
 'You're getting better.' Unknotting his tie, trousers in a puddle about his 
 feet, Schoenmaker serenaded her". (p. 109f.)  

 Maybe it's like Adorno's fascination of American popular culture that lurks 
 beneath the surface of his condemnation of the "cultural industry". Like Beavis 
 or Butthead once said: "It sucks. But in a cool way...". And then there is also 
 a "theoretical" pro-S/M statement in GR (- minor SPOILER):

 "'Ludwig, a little S and M never hurt anybody.'
 'Who said that?'
 'Sigmund Freud. How do I know? But why are we taught to feel reflexiv shame 
 whenever the subject comes up? Why will the Structure allow every other kind of 
 sexual behavior but THAT one? Because submission and dominance are ressources 
 it needs for its very survival. They cannot be wasted in private sex. In ANY 
 kind of sex. It needs our submission so that it may remain in power. It needs 
 our lusts after dominance so that it can co-opt us into its own power game. 
 There is no joy in it, only power. I tell you, if S and M could be established 
 universally, at the family level, the State would wither away.'
 This is Sado-anachism and Thanatz is its leading theoretician in the Zone these 
 days". (p. 737) 

 Between Kulturkritik and Sado-anarchism ... Anyone for clarification?

 Painful wishes, Kai