GRGR(19): The Victim in a Vakuum

[Lycidas at worldnet.att.net]

Jeremy Osner wrote:
> 
> OK, let's talk perversion! Herr Pökler doesn't seem to be sure, as of p.
> 415, whether this is a musical comedy or a hootenanny (and I also get an
> image of Peter Pan, leading the clapping to save Tinkerbell); but what
> really interests me about his song is the parenthetical paragraph that
> begins, "All together, all you masochists out there..."
> 
>   Lemme outline a few of the thoughts that run through my head when I
> read this. 1. Franz is a masochist, a repressed guy leading all the
> repressed audience members (boys only, or boys and girls?) in song. 1.1.
> Franz is looking for a Herrin. 1.2. And so is "everyone else," i.e. the
> Nazis, or the Audience, or whatever... 2. Hitler is a
> Dominatrix-substitute. 2.11. Well, maybe not "Hitler" but, 2.12. the
> Rocket is a Dominatrix-substitute. usw... you get the idea. (But do I?)

I get it. 


> 
>   So where does that leave us, this diaspora of authority-seekers? A
> while back there was a big argument on the list over whether
> [paraphrasing here] Pynchon was advocating sexual deviance as an avenue
> to personal liberation. I don't particularly want to get *that* one
> going again, but... It seems to me like this episode could be used as
> ammunition by a bellicose holder of either viewpoint on this issue. Like
> you could say, "The impulse toward 'perversion' is a natural human
> attribute, when it's repressed you get frustration and the V-2 or
> whatever," or also, you could say, "'perversion' is evil the same way
> the V-2 [or whatever] is." Please let's not have any expansions on
> either of these statements.
> 
>   B-but what about p. 426, where the narrator says, "Pökler cannot
> reconcile, not really, his dream of the perfectly victimized with the
> need bred into him to take care of business -- nor see how these may be
> one and the same"? Efficiency = submission? 

He can't reconcile his private dream, his personal need to
be a victim ( and this seems to be OK in the book) with his
taking care of business--which translates to being a victim
of the Dominatrix-substitutes you mention above. He can
reconcile it. No kidding. How did get in this position? The
system is powerful, Weissmann is powerful, he's a perfect
salesman/scientist, perfect, and don't forget what these
boys have been reading while they masturbate in the fields,
what they are growing up in, their relationships to their Pa
Pas. Sort of reminds of the relationship TRP explores less
obliquely in VL, that is the guys his age growing up in the
60s and having to deal with their WWII Pops,  paranoia and
all that James Dean stuff, and that whole oedipal thingy. I
think this ties into the passage below, GR.424, "....the
moment in which he is defined to himself at
last....ceremony....




And another thing that
> really interests me in this connection is p. 424, where I think a
> possible (if tortured) interpretation is, that the story-teller is
> comparing him/her/it*self* to a Dominatrix:
> 
>       The orders to Blizna were strange enough to be Weissman's
>     work: the day Pökler went out to sit in the Polish meadows at
>     the exact spot where the rocket was supposed to come down, he
>     was certain.
> 
>   Here's what I think about this: Pökler knows someone is playing games
> with him but he can't be sure who it is. He is in the same position, on
> several levels, as the reader of this book -- the story-teller and/or
> Weissman is playing cat-and-mouse with him. I think Weissman/Blicero
> could be thought of in some respects as being the author of *Gravity's
> Rainbow*, but I don't really have the theoretical background to defend
> this assertion -- it just strikes me as a groovy lens to look at the
> narrative through.
> 

Yes, we don't need the theoretical background. Blicero is
many respects, a very spooky character, look at how he
influences others. Does he influence the reader in some of
the same ways? Does he somehow act as a Dominatrix
substitute or surrogate for the author and does this put the
reader in a position of being some sort of victim? I'm not
sure about that. But perhaps, it works a little differently,
perhaps Blicero has this influence on one or two of the
narrators--one in particular I think, this guy we have in
these chapters, and in so doing, Blicero warps the
narrative, he's some sort of surrogate satirist. Just a
thought. 

Thanks Jeremy Osner