Sex & the Swastika

[Terrance F. Flaherty]

rj wrote:
> 
> >
> > 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.


I can see this too. 

 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. 

OK, I can see in this mirror. 

But in both
> cases humans are debased in the transaction in the interests of Control.

This is a point we can all agree with, I hope. 


> 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. 

Capable, yes, Mr. P does Conrad. We don't want to deny that
we are capable of things, all of us, with gods on our
sides.  

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.


Right, I hope. It's not necessary, but perhaps we can see
that it is a part of all we agree to above. ??  How does
Geli fit in here? 


> 
> 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. 

YUP! But are there some he wants to play with?  Just as
Pynchon will bring in historical companies, use their proper
names, whole and complete, even give their addresses,
histories etc., he will invent fictional companies and
addresses that reference things not in the text, but out of
the text.  We look them up all the time. He will bends
things, with poetic license, like the yew tree, or the
architecture where the rockets are built and he invents
characters, fictional characters with fictional names. What
is an example of this other than Geli? Other wise we will
get on to "Where does Pirate fit? Where does this fictional
character fit or that half name fit?" And we can go on and
on here, unless we deal either with Geli Tripping or, and
this might be better,  a different example of a fictional
character that we can maybe make more progress with???   How
geli fit in?  I'm not sure??? Just looking for more
information, or another, perhaps more workable example. 

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