pynchon-l-digest V2 #1443

[jbor]

----------
>From: Doug Millison <millison at online-journalist.com>
>

> The passage on pages 432-433 is narrated, straightforwardly, from
> Pokler's point of view.

It's third person narration so it is *detached* from Pokler's consciousness.
I agree that, for the most part, narration is filtered through Pokler's
point of view. I don't know how "straightforward" this is (eg What of those
-- rhetorical? -- questions framed in the third person at 433.5?)

> The narrator relates how Pokler  finally
> comes to grips with what he's suspected all along, that his work on
> the rocket has necessitated the cruel use of these human beings, some
> of whom he has seen marching in to work from Dora; the same narrator
> reported this back on p. 428:  "he could *see* -- the starved bodies,
> the eyes of the foreign prisoners being marched to work at four in
> the morning in the freezing cold and darkness" but he "helped with
> his own blindness" and somehow managed not to connect the dots
> between those slaves and his own job.   At page 433  the narrator
> says that Pokler realizes that "the faces are ones he knows after
> all" (433).  No sign in this passage that Pokler is giving up some
> suburban dream of family life (it sounds instead that he's
> recognizing people he saw marching in back at p. 428), but realizing
> that Leni and Ilse have met a similar fate could account for part of
> his gut-wrenching reaction; at any rate, the text doesn't address
> that here -- the narrator doesn't show us a scene where Pokler
> recongizes Leni or Ilse among these dead and dying --  although
> Pokler's concern for his wife and daughter is prominent in this long
> episode at the novel's center.

410.11
     They would build a house right on the rim [of the Sea of Tranquility on
    the Moon], Mutti and she and Pokler, gold mountains out one window and
    the wide sea out the other. And earth green and blue in the sky. . . .

432.28:
     He was not looking for Ilse, or not exactly. He may have felt that
    he ought to look, finally. He was not prepared. He did not know. Had the
    data, yes, but did not know, with senses or heart. . . .

There is a *special* symbolism for Pokler in this gesture of relinquishing
his wedding ring (cf. "He quit the game" @ 430.22), rather than, say, simply
giving this woman a fistful of money. For the woman it is merely an object
to be traded, "good for a few meals, or a blanket, or a night indoors, or a
ride home. . . ." (432.13)

>
> When Pokler confronts this scene of horror on pages 432-433, the
> narrator reports that Pokler is finally able to give up his denial
> that these crimes were taking place as a necessary part of the
> project to which he contributed as an engineer. "While he lived, and
> drew marks on paper [that's what Pynchon is doing, too, of course, in
> his Manhattan Beach apartment in the '60s while the aerospace
> industry down the road cranks out ICBMs], this invisible kingdom had
> kept on, in the darkness outside. . . all this time....Pokler
> vomited. He cried some."  It would seem safe to assume he's also
> giving up the romantic notions of space travel that the Nazis
> co-opted in order to get him to work so hard and diligently on the
> rocket, which the same narrator reported back at the beginning of
> this long episode, although the narrator doesn't touch specifically
> on that renunciation in this particular passage.

These are your readings and you're welcome to them. There are others,
equally as valid imo, if not more so. Pokler certainly seems to have given
up on his naive dream of a reunion with Ilse and Leni at this point. This
seems to have been the crux, and impetus, of this (his *first*) foray into
Dora. I'm not sure who Pokler is blaming, let alone the narrator ... let
alone who *Pynchon* is blaming (let alone that Pynchon is actually
self-identifying with Pokler at this point and purging himself of his own
"sinful" past.) Your interpretation seems "extreme", and what I would call
"fancy footwork".

>
> "If she lived, the ring would be good for a few meals, or a blanket,
> or a night indoors, or a ride home. . . ." -- that's of a piece with
> the rest,  narrated from Pokler's point of view, too.

Possible but unlikely imo. I don't really see Pokler suddenly transforming
into the Good Samaritan type; and if this is *all* it is then it's a pretty
futile gesture, considering the extent of the suffering he is suddenly
witnessing.

> While the
> narrator chooses not to illuminate the perspective of this "random
> woman,"  the narrator does report what Pokler thinks:  Pokler, the
> narrator tells us,  imagines that the woman might be able to do with
> the ring if she survives this hellhole that he, Pokler now realizes,
> helped to create.

Seems far-fetched. The final sentence is detached narration: Pokler has
"left" the scene in the previous sentence.

>
> rj said, "For example, the gold wedding ring Pokler gives to the
> "random woman" after the Dora prisoners have been liberated is, from
> Pokler's perspective, a final renunciation of his dream of regaining
> his ideal family setup with Leni and Ilse. But from the emaciated
> woman's perspective it is just a meal ticket, something which can be
> traded for food, shelter or transport (433). Pynchon gives both
> perspectives in the text but leaves it to the reader to join the
> dots, make the moral connections."
>
> I read this passage differently. Pynchon shows us quite clearly
> Pokler's visceral response to the enormity of the crime he now
> realizes he's been a part of; Pynchon suggests with equal clarity a
> moral framework within which Pokler can discern what he's actually
> done, and how he might respond. (I've explained above how the
> narrator specifically avoids giving us this random woman's point of
> view, her perspective, and instead stays within Pokler's perspective.)

Well, no, you haven't explained anything, you've merely stated that this is
your opinion.

>
> The narrator connects the dots between Pokler's feeble attempts at
> denial to his wretched realization of the truth: "Impotence,
> mirror-rotation of sorrow, works him terribly as runaway
> heartbeating, and with hardly any chances left him for good rage, or
> for turning. . ."

Is this the narrator, or is it Pokler? Or Pynchon? Which do you want it be.

>
> This "turning" -- yet another instance of this image, which recurs
> throughout GR --  in this context sounds very much like the turning
> in the Christian notion of repentence,  turning away from sin and
> towards God: "Repentence did not mean primarily remorse or regret for
> sin, but a radical turning to God, that is, a radical centering in
> God. . . .  repent ... meant to turn or return" (Marcus Borg, _Jesus:
> A New Vision_ ). Which is what a Christian can do when he realizes
> he's sinned and needs to turn his back on the old ways which have
> separated him from God, when he's put something besides God
> (something like a V-2 rocket, perhaps, which Pynchon elsewhere in GR
> calls a Holy Text, if not God Himself) at the center of his life. Why
> would Pynchon lift a trope from the Christian scheme of confession,
> forgiveness, redemption -- a framework fundamental to GR from start
> to finish -- to characterize Pokler's epiphany (an epiphany that,
> arguably, takes the form of self-condemnation) here in Dora, if not
> to indicate a register of moral judgement, to make such a judgement
> possible, and to indicate the terms it might take?

All this on the word "turning"? I think not. (And, cf. your own dig at "a
shelf-full of theoretical works" below.)
>
> It may be worth noting that Pynchon here does appear to affirm the
> possibility for such a turning:  his narrator tells us Pokler has
> "hardly any chances", slim but not none.
>
> I think I can understand how a critic at the extreme end of the
> post-modern spectrum, who wants to promulgate as absolute truth the
> assertion there are no moral absolutes, might want to read Pynchon in
> such a way as to erase Pynchon's moralizing; I note that it takes a
> lot of fancy footwork to do so, plus a shelf-full of theoretical
> works, to marshal the necessary arguments and somehow soften, or
> ignore, the stentorian tones in which Pynchon and his narrators so
> often drive the moral lessons home (that direct link between sex and
> colonialism, for example, that thunders back on  page 317). But, I
> don't see how Pokler's story, or in particular the passage that rj
> quotes from page 433, supports such a reading. But if that's the way
> you want to read GR, have at it. Everybody gets the Pynchon he wants.
>

You sound like some bombastic preacher thumping home the Book of Revelation
to his glass-eyed flock -- "stentorian", "lessons", "thunders" -- good
grief!

I don't read Pynchon as a "moralizing" author at all. I do read you as a
"moralizing" reader, however. C'est la vie.