Tarot in GR (is Re: grgr (34): "the tower" (747)

[jbor]

I tend to think that there are distinctions being made in the novel between,
say, Blicero and Pokler: that in actual, historical terms Pynchon isn't
lumping a mid-rank Nazi officer in with someone like Wernher von B. at all.
But my point with the Tarot spread is that the place of that particular card
in Weissmann's Tarot is not predictive in the slightest, and that this is a
fact which Pynchon was obviously quite aware of:

   The King of Cups, crowning his hopes, is the fair intellectual-king.

The card is "crowning his hopes", explicitly *not* predicting his future.
Plus, there is another definition of "fair" which you seem to overlook --
just, equitable, free from discrimination or dishonesty -- and which is
potentially more in keeping with the significance of that particular King
within the Tarot arcana.

My reading of the paragraph and its immediate context is that this is the
position in society which Blicero aspired to in the New (post-War) Order; an
Order which he could envision but, because of the looming outcome of the War
and his inevitable fate thereby, he recognised he would never become a part
of.

I think the fragment (and, again, I read it as Pynchon laying out the cards
and offering possible interpretations rather than exercising "intent" or
actively manipulating the narrative at this point), and the novel in toto,
go a little beyond what you are suggesting. Not only are the Nazi
scientists, military men and bureaucrats indicted in the novel (are they?),
( ... then, if they are) so too are their corresponding numbers on the
Allied bench: Pointy, Pirate and Pudding, for starters, let alone Major
Marvy or Muffage and Spontoon. So this is why I would find it surprising if
Pynchon were suddenly reverting to such unameliorated partisanship at this
late stage of proceedings in the novel.

I won't deny that your interpretation has often been the critical convention
... but am just interested to know why you are suddenly so vigorous in your
attempt to foreclose on an alternate reading is all ...    ; )

(PS Is the change in rank from Lieutenant to Captain in the German military
hierarchy a pro- or demotion? It's a demotion in the US, Britain etc, isn't
it? Or did the titles of military rankings change after the Nazis came to
power? How close to the top is Blicero? -- Goering was Hitler's chief
lieutenant in the mid-30s, but I don't get the impression that Blicero is
anywhere near this level in the Reich chain of command, ever.)

----------
>From: Dave Monroe <monroe at mpm.edu>
>

> Sorry, should have written, like them Nazi rocket scientists/military
> men/bureaucrats/A4 commanders, eh?  Walter Dornberger (Bell Aircraft
> Corporation), for starters (Weisenberger even mentions this is his annotation
to
> "Weissman'n's Tarot," as I recall) ... but the point I (at least) am making is
> that one might (depite valiant, albeit unconvincing attempts to the
> contrary--sorry, no save) indeed, as GR advises, "Look high, not low," "among
the
> successful academics, the Presidential advisers, the token intellectuals who
sit
> on boards of directors," for "the fair" (e.g., Weissmann, "white man")
> "intellectual-king," "He is almost surely there," Walter Dornberger, Wernher
von
> Braun, "people of like vision" mit SS Schutzhaftlingsfuhrer Blicero, all those
> ex-Nazi scientists, bureaucrats, whatever, assimilated into the American
> military-industrial (for starters) complex, not to mention the most complex of
> 'em all, NASA, the Apollo program, under Operations Overcast and Paperclip.
> Again, see Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, Whiteout, and John
Gimbel,
> Science, Technology and Reparations; C & St. C also recommend Tom Bower, The
> Paperclip Conspiracy and Linda Hunt, Secret Agenda, which I'm guessing might
be
> even more to the point, but I've not gotten 'round to 'em yet, so ...