pynchon-l-digest V2 #1420

[Doug Millison]

>millison also states that there is "no possibility of a loving or sexual
>relationship between Enzian and Weissman/Blicero" apart from the colonial
>situation. Does this also mean, then, that there was "no possibility of a
>loving relationship" developing between a slave-owner and slave in colonial
>America? Surely there are documented cases of this?

That's right. Perhaps the "love" between Thomas Jefferson and his 
slave is currently the highest profile case. Indeed, their "loving" 
relationship did not, could not exist apart from the broader power 
and sexual dynamics of slavery and the European colonial project in 
America, no matter what their personal feelings might have been. If 
the girl hadn't been his slave, if he hadn't physically owned her, 
how could Jefferson have taken her as a lover?  (Pynchon develops 
this theme quite a bit further in M&D, through the character Austra, 
and in Dixon's horndogging after the native women.)  Hundreds of 
years after blacks were brought here (by whites) in chains, blacks 
and whites do have loving relationships in America -- but you don't 
have to look far (memoirs of people involved in interracial 
relationships and families, etc.) to find that even this many 
generations later, these relationships resonate with that slavery 
dynamic.  It's a standard theme in Sunday newspaper magazines, 
certainly in cosmopolitan areas like the SF Bay Area with lots of 
interracial and intercultural marriages (like mine). It's a common 
theme in literature, too -- many stories in which star-crossed lovers 
fail to find happiness because of the colonial dynamics that come 
into play. Puccini's Madame Butterfly comes to mind, although that 
has to do with the American colonial project in Asia and not in North 
America.

You can say Weissmann/Blicero in Africa has no connection to the 
German colonials who came before him, but I think you'd have a 
difficult time convincing a Herero that's the case. He can only get 
close to and have his way with Enzian because of the colonization 
that his predecessors managed to carry out, and which 
Weissmann/Blicero perpetuates. Japanese people in Korea face a 
similar challenge today -- even though the formal colonization of 
Korea by Japan ended decades ago, Japanese individuals who travel to 
Japan, who try to do business there, etc., have a difficult time 
overcoming the prejudice that was engendered by the Japanese 
colonials who came before them.  By the 1990s, of course, Korea was 
strong enough to face Japan as an economic partner on more or less 
equal terms (this is vastly simplifying a complex issue; you could 
also point to Japanese in China today, who must contend daily with 
their past war crimes and colonial subjugation of the Chinese, 
history which is portrayed on a daily basis on TV, in the press, 
magazines, books, etc., which keeps a high degree of anxiety and 
hatred stirred up among the Chinese,  a tool used by the Chinese 
government for leverage in diplomatic and business relations with 
Japan), but that's hardly the case for Africans dealing with 
Europeans prior to WWII, where Africa was  the exploited, oppressed 
party, nowhere near parity in economic or political terms.

To call  Katje, Enzian, Gottfried, perhaps the most psychologically 
damaged folks in Pynchon's sick GR crew, "quite reliable witnesses" 
may serve some purpose in the tormented argument rj uses to make 
Weissman/Blicero the venerated hero of GR, but I don't think 
"reliable" is the word many readers would use to describe them, and I 
certianly would not.

To address a question rj raises later in his post, 
Weissmann/Blicero's crimes do not include the mere fact of his 
homosexuality, IMHO, although he would appear to be breaking German 
law of that historical era so in that sense his homosexuality, in the 
eyes of the German law (and *not* in my view), is a crime.  Of course 
Weissmann/Blicero shares the guilt of his Nazi brethren for  Nazi war 
crimes; using his privileged status as German colonial in Africa to 
take advantage of a powerless subject - Enzian - amounts to a crime, 
too, IMHO; that's certainly the kind of thing that's considered a 
crime when groups like American descendents of African slaves start 
talking about past crimes and reparations, or when groups agitate to 
protect boys and girls in Thailand from sexual predation by rich 
Europeans, Australians, and sex tourists from other countries. 
Disagree if you wish.  Perhaps Australian law does not protect minors 
from sexual predation by adults, but American law does, now and in 
the historical period covered in GR; Pynchon is playing with dynamite 
in his treatment of this issue, which is highly nuanced and which 
does reflect  considerable ambiguity, but which also calls up 
powerful polarizing responses -- evidenced in the literary 
establishment's reception of GR in the early '70s, and in continuing 
polemics -- and while it neither adds or detracts from my reading of 
this novel I find it difficult to believe that Pynchon wouldn't have 
been aware he was writing about a hot-button topic. 
Weissmann/Blicero is a madman because, among other reasons, he 
appears to believe in some sort of redeeming possibilities that  flow 
from  stuffing his lover Enzian into the nosecone of a V2 rocket and 
blasting him into space, hardly a model of sound mental health, IMHO. 
No doubt he's a fabulously complex character, but he's still crazy as 
a bedbug -- that's part of his literary appeal.

I do suggest that you read a bit about the psychology of the sexual 
abuse of children by adults. (And it's too bad we don't have more 
women on this list -- I know several who have fled the boy's locker 
room atmosphere that prevails --  because there's a feminist point of 
view that might come into play here, too.)  Fact is, children 
generally exist at the mercy of the adults around them, who 
continually expose them to danger and abuse them, sometimes wilfully, 
sometimes without thinking.  This is a persistent concern in 
Pynchon's fiction beginning in his short stories, as Terrance has 
pointed out in more than one post.  You don't have to stretch your 
imagination at all, or be particularly politically correct, to see 
Bianca as an abused child in GR; she is clearly the creature of her 
mother and the adults who take advantage of her mother. In Pokler's 
story it appears that Pokler's superiors (including Weissmann) have 
managed to discover Pokler's incest fantasies and cater to them with 
one of the "daughters" they send for his holiday. In Vineland, we 
have Zoyd's nuanced concerns about his sexual attractions for his own 
daughter. Pynchon combines the child-adult sexual dynamic with 
colonialism again in M&D, where he depicts the Vroom women, daughters 
and mothers, doing their best to sexually frustrate Mason in order to 
get him rise to the task of  fathering a slave child with the slave 
Austra -- and we see Austra led on a leash through a bordello, in a 
scene where, as he does in GR, Pynchon clearly ties together 
colonialism and sex.

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