V. (Ch 3)

[jbor]

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> Goodfellow has that affuent look--but underneath? Goodfellow and Lepsius
> seem to share the theorem that in Egypt, one can be uncivilized and
> perpetrate fighting for gain.

The exchange between Lepsius and Goodfellow (75.13) at the Fink Restaurant
after the party at the Austrian Consulate delineates (for Max R-B at least,
and so for the reader) "how the sides were drawn up". Lepsius refers to
"this soiled South", while Goodfellow comments that "far enough down the
Nile one gets back to a kind of primitive spotlessness"; Lepsius counters
that there "are no property rights down there", while Goodfellow demurs that
Europeans are "civilized" and thus "jungle law is inadmissable." Each man
presumes to speak on behalf of a different colonial faction; but for both of
them Africa is merely an abstraction, land to be claimed in the name of one
or another European imperial power.

What is interesting is that the European alliances are never really
clarified, are perhaps still forming in fact. At the Consulate party Yusef
the factotum speculates that the looming trouble in Upper Egypt is between
England and France, with "Germany (and therefore Italy and Austria)" aligned
in a "temporary rapprochement" with the former, and Russia in league with
the latter (67.3). However, he notices the Austrian Consul "spending much
time in the company of his Russian conterpart" (68.9). Similarly, Lepsius
(who is Hanne's "lover") is German, while Goodfellow and Porpy, who are
obviously Lepsius's opponents, are unmistakeably British. Bongo-S seems to
be a rather heartless (perhaps literally!) mercenary who is working for
Lepsius.

The reader will never really find out where Victoria fits in (I suspect she
is just a "green girl" at this point 72.26, who thinks herself "in love"
with Goodfellow and who is asking Porpy to protect his partner, which Porpy
does because he is perhaps "in love" with Victoria too 93.8 -- it really is
some tragic grand opera!), let alone who is working for which government.
This is because from the point of view of the locals who narrate the
episodes they are all the same, interchangeable (Gebrail: "How could you say
they were people: they were money." 84.15). Pynchon overturns the historical
paradigm by changing the perspective of narration. Stencil aspires to
represent an objective vantage (it is significant to note that Stencil's
final "impersonation" is of a camera lens); he conceives the locals as
insignificant, and as impartial witnesses to the political intrigues of the
Europeans. However, what seeps through the impersonations is quite a
different lesson, one which Stencil possibly misses: these locals are people
as well. As Waldetar quips:

     There's no organized effort about it but there remains a grand joke
     on all visitors to Baedeker's world: the permanent residents are
     actually humans in disguise. (78.18)

best