GRGR 31 Shit'n'Shinola

[KXX4493553 at aol.com]

In einer eMail vom 30.07.00 02:15:26 (MEZ) - Mitteleurop. Sommerzeit schreibt 
jbor at bigpond.com:

<< What about the "Schein-Aula" (Seeming-Hall?) connection which Pynchon 
posits
 as another aspect of Saure's misunderstanding of the phrase. I'm a little
 lost on the bit that starts "As for Shinola, we pass to universitarians ...
 Pokler ... Mondaugen ... Fibel ... Achtfaden" at the bottom of 687 to the
 inside of the blue "planetarium" at the top of 688 where Pynchon (filtering
 Saure's thoughts still perhaps?) asks:
 
     ... Will it begin above us? Down *there*? Behind us? *In the middle of
     the air*? And how soon?
 
 I think there might be a connection here with the "old theatre" metaphor at
 the end of the novel, the "it" here also being the forthcoming nuclear
 apocalypse, which will be just as final for Germans as for Americans? A
 notion that Hollywood movie myths are propaganda of the same calibre as the
 Nazi vision of an Aryan super-race?
  >>
I would agree with your interpretation. I re-read the passage in my German 
edition (p. 1077). The world "Schein-Aula" doesn't exist in German. It's an 
artificial word. "Schein" (seeming) is the opposite of the "real", something 
that does only exist in our imagination. "Schein" also means betrayal, 
deceiving. The "Schein-Aula" is a "Luftschloss", a "Wolkenkuckucksheim" as we 
say in German, a "castle in the air" built by Albert Speer.
kwp