grgr (34): 'n büschen s und m hat noch niemandemgeschadet ...

[Dave Monroe]

That seems to be The Question all 'round here, "is the author speaking," i.e., is
Pynchon a proponent of this, or that, or any other statement, practice, theory, what
have you?  Who knows?  And does it matter?  He doesn't seem much concerned to
clarify matters, within the texts or outside them, and all we have are the texts, so
... that "heteroglossia" thing Mikhail Bakhtin claims for Dostoevsky (Problems of
Dostoevesky's Poetics)?  Voices, not necessarily subsumed under any Authorial
Voice?  My guess is ... well, perhaps one can read the narrative voice with regards
to just whom, or what, is under narration at any given moment, and see just what
happens ...

Now, Kai has generously keyed in Thanatz's little "sado-anarchist" manifesto for us
(see below), so I won't have to do that, but ... but keep in mind the function of
similar such voices in, say, the (politically-pointed) satires of Voltaire, or
Swift, or, well (or Orwell?), whoever.  They speak positions, those in play at a
certain time, a certain place, in a certain situation, even.  To my ear, Thanatz
(and do note that death connotation, "thanatos") sounds perhaps somewhere along that
Bataille-Artaud-Foucault-Deleuzoguattari line, but I'm not so sure that would be a
line Pynchon would necesarily have picked up on.  Brown?  Marcuse?  Who?  Anyone?

But there is an awful lot about S and/or M, B and/or D.  Hm ... recall Deleuze's
uncoupling of the two, not merely equal and opposite reactions, as the masochist is
in control of the masochistic relationship (see GD's "Coldness and Cruelty,"
convenient paired with Sacher-Masoch's Venus in Furs by Zone Books).  Nietzsche's
(hey hey hey ...) deconstruction of sorts of that master/slave dialectic (and cf.
that hysteron proteron thing so often noted in GR, effects seemingly preceeding
causes; cf. Nietzche on pain, for that matter).  The similarities--and
differences--between the opening lines of GR and those of Franz Fanon's Black Skin,
White Masks: "The explosion will not happen today.  It is too soon ... or too late"
(and keep going: "I do not come with timeless truths," and so on ... and note all
the black, white, esp. in re: race, in GR as well).

And fetishization, indeed, again, those inanimate objects, those animate objects,
all those objects, period ....

Is there a homosexual relationship in GR without at least a hint sadomschistic to
it?  Beyond "the trenches of the First World War," where "English"--and why only
English?  Okay, Mossmoon and Sir Marcus here, but ...--"men came to love one another
decently," though what is meant by "decently" here?  "without shame or
make-believe," but there is that "easy likelihood of their sudden deaths"
(V616/B718).  And what IS going on in all this, anyway?  What is being said about
"Homosexuality in high places," then, "now"?

But, also, take a look at Weissmann's Tarot, specifically "the King of Cups,
crowning his hopes, is the fair intellectual-king.  If you're wondering where he's
gone, look among the successful academics, the Presidential advisers, the token
intellectuals who sit on boards of directors.  He is almost surely there.  Look
high, not low" (V746/B871).   Elect, not preterite, part of the Firm, the Operation,
one  of Them.  The routinization of Blicero's charisma? And bleacher, white man,
indeed ... "His future card, the card of what will come"--that is, of what is, at
the writing, publication, reading of Gravity's Rainbow--"is The World."  Is some
claim being made somewhere here of the privilegeing of Weissmann/Blicero in GR?
Can't see how, albeit why, well ...





Lorentzen / Nicklaus wrote:

>  on thanatz' pleading for "sado-anarchism" (737):
>
>  is the author speaking?

> and: what's the significance of s&m in pynchon's prose?

>  Sounds like if there's ambivalence. On the one side there is the historically
>  rising tendency to the enfetishment of the inanimate.

> a  certain fascination with these scenes,

>  "'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?