V. (Ch 3) Impersonations and Dreams

[Paul Mackin]

----- Original Message -----
From: "jbor" <jbor at bigpond.com>
> One other thing about this section. A majority of the narrators in the
> chapter whom Stencil impersonates are European immigrants or refugees,
> rather than indigenous: P. Aeuil, Max, Waldetar, Hanne etc. But I don't
> think that this means that they are simply "colonialists" in the same way
> that the spies and tourists they (ob)serve are. There is a bit of
> cross-cultural empathy going on (a multicultural rather than
assimilationist
> paradigm I think), and which Pynchon is playing around with. A good
example
> of this is when Portuguese-born Waldetar recalls joking around with his
> young wife, Nita, in respect of Muslim (or Hebrew, is it?) versus
Christian
> customs and mores, espousing the potential benefit (wisdom?) of the
> Solomonic tradition of "One man, several wives." (79.23) Nita's laughing
> rebuke actually sounds stereotypically Jewish to my ear: "Great king ...
> who? One peasant girl you can't even support."

Yes, the European privilege would not carry over to those melted (or is it
melded) into the local blue collar world.  Also, Walditar was a Sephardi, so
your ear may not decieve you--assuming Sephardic Jews have similarity in
household patter to the Eastern European with which we (Americans at least)
are stereotypically familiar. Fiddler on the Roof and such.

                        P.