VV(13): Enters Weismann

[jbor]

----------
>From: Doug Millison <DMillison at ftmg.net>
>

> In V. these Europeans do constitute an imperial-colonial presence in Africa;
> the details of which country is administering the colonies and which
> corporations extract the resources and profits using the locals as
> expendable production factors hardly matter from the point of view of the
> colonized.

OK.

> Here in V., later in GR and M&D, Pynchon shows clearly how the
> European imperial project leads to genocide in Africa and elsewhere, and in
> GR shows how Nazi genocide (in a context that emphasizes continuity with the
> mission of genocide that Weissmann and his colleagues celebrate here in V.,
> to the point of continuing with the same character, Weissmann in the later
> novel) feeds the technological monster that is in turn devouring humans.

One point of departure here is Weissmann's presence and role at the Siege
Party. As V's "companion", he is little other than a gate-crasher, and he is
depicted as something of a comic buffoon throughout the episode. The party
guests celebrate Fasching, and dress up in period costumes of 1904, as
ordered by Foppl. Foppl recounts some of his own experiences of 1904 to
Mondaugen while the latter is sick in bed with scurvy, and is seemingly
prompted again by V at 265.5 up.

In that personal letter to Thomas F. Hirsch Pynchon writes that he finds it
"perfectly plausible" that the Herero "were trying to exterminate
themselves", and this is a substantial theme in _GR_ as well.

> As
> "jbor" notes, the guests at the siege party, including Weissman, re-enact
> and celebrate the genocide of the Herero, which would seem a rather pointed
> way for Pynchon to show how that project continues and its psycho-spiritual
> importance for the inheritors of this genocidal tradition. The names and
> uniforms may change but the exploitation continues, which would seem to be
> part of the bigger picture Pynchon is painting, above the rather
> fine-grained historical detail "jbor" offers.  It takes some considerable
> shuck and jive to read Weissmann as innocent victim or powerless,  when you
> see the actual power -- of life and death, in fact -- that Pynchon shows him
> wielding, in V. as part of the parasitical and cruel imperial overseer
> class,

I think there is quite a bit more historical subtlety than this in the
chapter. And Weissmann is surely a bit of a stooge, here in  _V._ that is.

> and in GR where he commands the power of a Rocket that represents the
> fruit of Western technology at its most advanced and earns a reputation
> among death camp inmates for the terror he is able to inspire.

Or, " ... and earns the adoration of the most persecuted of the Holocaust
victims for his open defiance of Nazi protocol and his apparent fearlessness
in the face of near-defeat and certain death."

best