WWII in GR

[Paul Mackin]

On Sat, 12 Aug 2000, Dave Monroe wrote:

> ... at any rate, I'm curious as to why you, or anyone else, would ignore,
> dismiss, would believe Pynchon ignores, dismisses, the "obvious," that link to
> Nazism, the "link between Nazism and the postwar world," and so forth.
> "Nazism hell"?  "It could all have been different," indeed.

Clearly the intended meaning did not get through to everyone in my BS
post of yesterday. I took it as a indisputable given that P wanted to
link the pre and postwar worlds and did so through Weissmann at a rather
climactic point in the book. Straight history on the other hand would
more likely draw the link through vonBraun. What I wanted to do,
somewhat fancifully because it was no big deal, was to speculate on why
vB was not the fictional choice for P. I did so, how convincingly is a
matter of opinion, by citing the fact of how nonessential vB and the Nazis
could rather easily be made out to be in the development of Post War
America. What I meant by 'it could all have been different' was that, even
if vB had not not been brought to America, the all important outcomes
would have remained not much changed.  The rocket program would have
progressed apace without him and his team of imported rocket specialist
even if not quite as fast. In otherwords vB is quite accidental for
purposes of this rather obvious kind link between the past and the
present. This is why he IMHO would have been a weak candidate for the role
Weissmann was selected for. Weissmann and his psychology seem, I
believe, rather a deep mystery to us readers. And transferences
of the type P wished to suggest had to be equally mysterious. vB was a 
rather pedestrian, aside from his technical proficiency, figure, not
even a very good Nazi. Boring in other words. Hope it's clear I'm talking
here about literary strategy not history. vB and a great many other
circumstances can be and have been seen as plausible historic links--not
necessarily merely instrumental ones with regard to missle development
either. P by including vB prominently in the epigraph made use of
this. But Weissmann, or his spirit since I believe the mortal himself is
dead by the time postwar America rolls around, got top billing--when the
high drama of the 00000 launching required, well, high drama. 

Anyway that's my story.

			P.