GR: Colonialism and sexual choice

[Doug Millison]

rj:
>  Colonialism and sexual choice are two separate things
>entirely.

Pynchon writes, in a GR passage that immediately follows a discussion 
of Enzian, the rocket, and racial suicide:

"[...] wait, wait a minute, yes it's Karl Marx, that sly old racist 
skipping away with his teeth together and his eyebrows up trying to 
make believe it's nothing but Cheap Labor and Overseas Marketsd. . . 
. Oh, no. Colonies are much, much more. Colonies are the outhouses of 
the European soul, where a fellow can let his pants down and relax, 
enjoy the smell of his own shit. Where he can fall on his slender 
prey roaring as loud as he feels like, and guzzle her blood with open 
joy. Eh? Where he can just wallow and rut and let himself go in a 
softness, a receptive darkness of limbs, of hair as wooly as the hair 
on his own forbidden genitals." (GR 317)

rj might not, but Pynchon clearly puts together colonialism and 
sexual "choice" (that's not a word I'd choose to disguise the ugly 
reality of rape or sexual abuse of a boy, although you might speak of 
Weissmann/Blicero's choice to take advantage of his status as 
colonial oppressor to make the boy Enzian his catamite). Pynchon went 
on to develop this theme of sexuality in the colonial context in M&D, 
of course, in some depth.

Interesting to note, in the passage rj keeps quoting to somehow prove 
that Enzian is the instigator of the sexual relationship with 
Weissmann/Blicero (who wouldn't be there in Africa in the first place 
except for the colonial relationship which Pynchon has characterized 
in the passage above; there's no possibility of a loving or sexual 
relationship between Enzian and Weissman/Blicero absent the power and 
sexual dynamics of the colonial situation that Pynchon depicts), 
Pynchon calls Enzian a "boy" three times. Not a "man" or an "adult" 
but "boy" is the word Pynchon repeatedly chooses, plus one instance 
of "the child" in the passage on page 100.

Boy \Boy\, n.
    In various countries, a male servant, laborer, or slave of a
    native or inferior race; also, any man of such a race.

          He reverted again and again to the labor difficulty,
          and spoke of importing boys from Capetown. --Frances
                                                   Macnab.

Boy \Boy\, v. t.
    To act as a boy; -- in allusion to the former practice of
    boys acting women's parts on the stage.

          I shall see Some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness.
                                                   --Shak.

Boy \Boy\, n. [Cf. D. boef, Fries. boi, boy; akin to G. bube,
    Icel. bofi rouge.]
    A male child, from birth to the age of puberty; a lad; hence,
    a son.

          My only boy fell by the side of great Dundee. --Sir W.
                                                   Scott.

rj quoted:
We make Ndjambi Karunga now, omuhona . . . a whisper, across
      the burning thorn branches where the German conjures away energies
      present outside the firelight with his slender book. He looks up
      in alarm. The boy wants to fuck, but he is using the Herero name
      of God [...] to the boy Ndjambi Karunga is what happens when they
      couple, that's all; God is creator and destroyer, sun and darkness,
      all sets of opposites brought together, including black and white,
      male and female . . . and he becomes, in his innocence, Ndjambi
      Karunga's child (as are all his preterite clan, relentlessly, beyond
      their own history) here underneath the European's sweat, ribs, gut-
      muscles, cock (the boy's own muscles staying fiercely tight for what
      seems hours, as if he intends to kill, but not a word, only the long
      clonic, thick slices of night that pass over the bodies). (100)

-- 

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