GRGR(18): Finding Lisaura

[David Morris]

--- Jeremy Osner <jeremy at xyris.com> wrote:
> Way back on p. 364, we are told of Slothrop, "As a
> matter of fact, he is
> also just about to run into his Lisaura"; on the
> next page, the sentence
> "This is how they meet" introduces a story that
> isn't about Slothrop
> meeting his Lisaura; it's easy to forget all about
> it. 
> But hey, what's this? here on p. 393 comes the line,
> "This is how he
> comes to meet Margherita Erdmann,... his child and
> his helpless
> Lisaura." Which means you could look at the
> intervening 30 pages as
> being the story, not of the birth of Rocketman and
> his adventures in
> Potsdam, but of Slothrop meeting Lisaura -- to me
> that "This is how they
> meet... This is how he comes to meet her"
[snip]
> Also -- has anyone got more reference info re: The
> Minnesinger, and
> Lisaura? I have only vague, unreliable memories from
> a German class in
> college. Anyone know if Minnesinger is from the same
> root as Minstrel?
> 

>From the Hyperarts:
http://www.hyperarts.com/pynchon/

Lisaura
The girl whom the mythical Tannhäuser (the
Minnesinger: "minstrel") cheated on by living
underground for a year with Venus (aka Frau Holda).
After a year he returns, satiated, and goes to the
Pope to seek absolution. The Pope says there's as much
chance for Tannhäuser being forgiven as there is for
the Pope's staff blooming. The Pope's staff
miraculously blooms three days later, but not before
Lisaura has died of grief and Tannhäuser has returned
to the abode of Venus; 364; 393; Pope's staff, 470,
532; 533, 619; See also Tannhäuser

Tannhäuser
Tannhäuserism (love of being taken under mountains),
299; "even a Minnesinger needs to be alone" 299; "the
Singing Nincompoop" 364; See also Lisaura

>From Dr Laurence Daw's illustrated GR summary:
http://www.gtn.net/Pynchon/preface.htm

 (39)  Awakening after his drugged sleep, Slothrop
meets Margherita Erdmann, the Anti-Dietrich: not a
destroyer of men, but a doll, languid and
exhausted.... They are in the Neubabelsberg studio
where von Göll made dozens of vaguely pornographic
horror movies. She is his creature, and Slothrop's
Lisaura. But the gold, the mirrors, the miles of
Baroque ornament, drove von Göll himself a little mad.
Especially those long corridors... He acted in films
under Slothrop's new pseudonym, Max Schlepzig, so when
Slothrop whips Margherita there is a confusion of
identities. He becomes Max as he covers her with his
cape, and she cries out for her lost child Bianca.  


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