Letter to Thomas F. Hirsch

jbor jbor at bigpond.com
Tue Oct 3 11:08:50 CDT 2000


Yes, this is the letter which is reprinted as an appendix to David Seed's
book, I believe, where, if I remember the context correctly, Pynchon is
either asking for confirmation or thanking for same of a South African
researcher who had written a thesis about Herero culture and the colonial
history of the region. It certainly demonstrates how very conscious Pynchon
was and is of ensuring the accuracy of his historical (and ethno-cultural)
details. In the letter Pynchon talks about how it had occurred to him that
the various historical genocides which have been wrought in the Second and
Third World (the campaigns against the Herero, Nth Amerindians, even Western
assaults on S-E Asia), as well as the Nazi Holocaust, are hyponymic of the
missionary-imperialist instinct of Christianity (in the same way, I guess,
that the 'Luddite' article contends that the death camps, V-2 program and
Manhattan Project are hyponyms of Industrial Capitalism.)

Seen in this light Blicero's Rilkean decadence *transcends* the destructive
impetuses of Western Christianity: Gottfried's sacrifice is a gesture of
"unity and integration" (Faith) rather than one of "analysis and
differentiation" (Reason).

best




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