Sex & the Swastika

[rj]

> 
> rj, why such a firm insistence that TRP couldn't possibly be referring to
> Hitler's dominatrix? In texts so obviously rich in literary and historical
> allusions, I really don't understand your reluctance to admit what, in the
> context of this novel, appears so completely obvious.  How do you answer
> the bigger question, which is Why do so many of Pynchon's character names
> lead to historical personages whose history intersects so significantly
> with the material, themes, and motifs that Pynchon deals with?  Just
> coincidence? Or what?

doug, you misread what I'm saying, which is simply that it doesn't do it
for me. I'm not insisting on anything at all. If you want to read
Pynchon in a certain way then that's fine, I just don't happen to agree
with you. I can see that the coprophagy and stuff that Pudding engages
in with Katje could be a reversal of the traditional stereotypical
association of Nazi officers and sexual deviation. Instead of the SS or
Gestapo officer indulging in a bit of s & m with a nubile young girl
(and/or boy, like Blicero), or blackmailing an idealistic scientist to
work on the secret rocket fuel formula under threat of the revelation of
some terrible personal peccadillo which has been discovered and filed in
the dossiers, it's all a mirror world in jolly old Blighty: here the
scientist is in Control and the military officer submits to the girl as
dominatrix. It's neat, it's symmetrical, it's a mirror. But in both
cases humans are debased in the transaction in the interests of Control.
Mr P's point isn't that Pudding is (like/just as bad as) Hitler, it's
that both sides were and are just as capable of such debauchery and
abuses of personal humanity. The convoluted connection between Katje and
Geli Raubal through Geli Tripping (how does that go again?) isn't
necessary to make this very obvious point.

I don't agree that "so many of Pynchon's character names lead to
historical personages", at least not in the board game sense in which
you are attempting to apply the formula. I've provided examples where
historical personages are referred to, or are characterised, directly in
the texts: Mickey Rooney, PMS Blackett, Pavlov, Kekule, Charlie Parker,
Malcolm X, Richard Nixon, JFK Senior and Junior, Margaret Dumont,
Rudolph Klein-Rogge, Roosevelt, Truman, Melvin Purvis, Dillinger, Werner
von Braun, Walter Rathenau. There are countless others. No half-names,
no subterfuge. When Mr P wishes to draw our attention to a historical
personage he does so in a straightforward way. This, for me, is obvious.

best