GRGR: Mondaugen as bodhisattva

[Doug Millison]

By calling Mondaugen "bodhisattva" Pynchon's irony slides into sarcasm,
even scorn. The bodhisattva is an enlightened being who postpones entry
into Nirvana (escape from the wheel of reincarnation) in order to help
other humans achieve enlightenment, an act of mercy. Hardly the description
I'd apply to a Nazi officer who has "found a rapprochement here among the
rockets" with Weissmann (and the Dora slaves who will suffer and die in
service to the Rocket) and who plays the key role in manipulating Pokler
with "Ilse".   There's another sense  Pynchon may have in mind, of course:
Mondaugen's actions do help Pokler achieve a realization of his role in the
torture and murder of the Dora slaves, and Pokler does make an attempt at
symbolic amends when he gives his gold ring to the dying Dora victim. It's
not the Kirghiz Light -- just a small, human gesture of mercy.  We could
also see Pynchon as a sort of bodhisattva, urging his readers on to equally
profound realizations about so many things -- in this case (Pokler's
story), how Science and Technology become accomplices to the great 20th
century crimes, how the powers-that-be manage to co-opt folks like Pokler
into helping to commit those crimes through emotional manipulation and
blackmail and creepy diversions like Zwolfkinder (or Disneyland, not far
from the defense and aerospace industrial military complex in Southern
California where Pynchon spent part of the time he wrote GR).

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