VV(13): Enters Weismann

[David Morris]

Why are you attempting to converse with "jbor's mouthpiece?"

This conversation can go nowhere but down.

David Morris

>From: Doug Millison <DMillison at ftmg.net>
>To: pynchon-l at waste.org
>Subject: RE: VV(13): Enters Weismann
>Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2001 09:36:51 -0700
>
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From:  [mailto:fqmorris at hotmail.com]
>Sent: Wednesday, April 11, 2001 7:56 AM
>To: jbor at bigpond.com; michel.ryckx at freebel.net
>Cc: pynchon-l at waste.org
>Subject: Re: VV(13): Enters Weismann
>
>
>"David Morris":
>"I think jbor's characterization of W. below is accurate."
>
>Somehow, that doesn't surprise me. One hand washes the other. :-)
>
>"David Morris":
>"W. seems a
>slightly-deranged comic boob which is distinctly at odds with his character
>in GR.  In V. he's only a sideshow, not central, so the development in GR
>really makes him another character entirely with only the incidentals for
>continuity."
>
>Look at the context in which Pynchon puts Weissmann -- in V., an officer in
>the service of a nation on a mission of genocide -- and the continuity with
>GR is unmistakeable. He's a younger man in V., of course. I suppose you
>could argue Weissmann/Blicero is a sort of "comic boob" in GR, too -- all
>that melodramatic whining and whingeing and carrying on in his self-pitying
>parody of Rilkean German Romanticism (but lacking the empathy and insight
>that lets Rilke get to the value of individual suffering as a means to
>solidarity with fellow humans), even as he advances the Nazi cause, 
>inflicts
>pain on those most loyal to him, sends his lover up in flames as tribute to
>the death god he serves. Weissmann fulfills in GR all the potential Pynchon
>gifts him with in V.

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