WWII in GR

[Dave Monroe]

... well, having now invested myself in Pokler for what little free time
I've had (beyond posting here ...) for the past day or so, will be a bit
before i can get to Weissmann, Blicero, but ... but, as I believe
Weisenberger (The Gravity's Rainbow Companion) notes, Pokler's career
does rather follow von Braun's, from the Technische Hochschule to the
Verein fur Raumschiffahrt to the Vergeltungswaffen (see, at any rate, GR
ca. V400/B466), although, again, Pokler is indeed not von Braun (who
provides the epigraph for, and is later--e.g., V416/B485 himself named
as a background figure in, the novel).  By the way, note those
"Plutocratic nations to the west, communist nations to the east" @
V401/B467 ...

... but in re: recent discussions of science, scientists, engineers,
technology, responsibility, politics, et al., do note that Pokler
"thought himself a practical man," "But others had the money, others
gave the orders--trying to impose their lusts and bickerings on
something that had its own vitality, on a technologique they'd never
begin to understand" (V401/B467; interesting insertion of the French
here, by the way, reminds me of Jacques Ellul's, and later, Michel
Foucault's, that French-in-general sense of technique, as a sort of
general condition, cf. Aristotle's techne, something made, fashioned).
"later, as the A4 was going operational, as they found tehmselves with a
real rocket-in-being"--a Heideggerism of sorts? Or just that general
problem of translating German philosophical terms?  Or French
existentialist ones, for that matter ...--"the struggles for power would
begin in ernest" (ibid.).

Interestingly, "all his training had encouraged an eye for analogies"
(ibid.) ... but what's of immeiate inetrest here is, after Leni Pokler
accuses him of being "blind," of "Kadavergehorsamkeit," of what
Wesineberger glosses as "corpse-obedinece," "a kind of zombie state," it
is noted that "He was political, up to a point"--and can't help but hear
not only Pointsman, but that singularity at the peak of a parabolic
trajectory here--"there was politics enough out at the rocket field.
The corporation and the universities--the Army said--didn't want to risk
capital or manpower on developing anything as fantastic as a rocket.
The army ahd nowhere to turn but to private invetors and clubs like the
VfR."  And here Leni notes, anticipating Ike, 'Shit.  They're all in on
it together" (V400/B466).  "the choice was between building what the
Army wanted--practical hardware--or pushing on in chronic poverty,
dreaming of expeditions to Venus" (V400-1, and note that Venus, as
opposed to Mars).

"He thought of himself as a practical man" (now @ V401/B467).   "Not
much passion or ideology"--as opposed to the rationalization of the
irrational in that "reactionary modernism" of, among others, Nazi
engineers (see, again, Jeffrey Herf, Reactionary Modernism)?  "But
others had the money, others gave the orders--trying to superimpose
their lusts"--Venus and Mars, eros and thanatos ... and it only gets
more interesting as you turn the page.  But that notion of the
apolitical, apassionate scientist, engineer, and perhaps of the
neutrality of technology ... but, as Leni points out, "as clearly as she
could," "They're using you to kill people."  "That's their only job, and
you're helping them" (V400/B466 again).  "We'll all use it"--Pokler
responds, emphasis on "it"--"someday, to leave the earth.  To
transcend."  I made some comments some time ago in re: Pynchon's
problematizing of (say, gnostic) "transcendence,"  but note Leni's own
"problematizing" here: "She laughed.  'Transcend,' from Pokler?"  And
here's Pokler's own utopianism: "'Someday,' honestly trying, "they won't
have to kill.  Borders won't mean anything.  We'll all have outer
space...."  And then comes Leni's accustaions of blindness,
corpse-obedience ...

... in the meantime, skipping ahead, Blicero, I believe: "Is the cycle
over now, and a new one rady to begin?  Will our new Edge, our new
Deathkingdom, be the Moon?" (V723/B843) ... well, for your consideration
...