Eddins on Blicero - "[Pynchon] was of The Devil's Partywithout knowing it"

[Terrance]

jbor wrote:
> 
> ----------
> >From: Terrance <lycidas2 at earthlink.net>
> 
> > What a great compliment from Dwight Eddins!
> >
> 
> A "compliment"?! Is this another "typo"?

No! And let me say something about that Typo. 


I was replying,  in part,  to your post. 

Your wrote: 

"It seems pretty clear that Sudwest was actually being
administered by the Dutch in 1922: cf "the grass hut of
Willem van Wijk, a minor
extremity of the Administration in Windhoek." (229.8) And,
what is
happening there is obviously an uprising of the indigenous
population (it's why
the European guests are under *siege* at the villa), not an
extension of
colonial genocide at all. I agree that it's pretty sick of
Foppl and
Vera to have the other guests reenact the circumstances and
responses to the
1904 revolt, which were genocidal, but Weissmann isn't the
instigator of
that either."


Me: 
Weissmann and Fopple are the men that give V her 1904 and it
is Weissmann who says  "we could  be getting the
[protectorate] back."  And it is
Weissmann who asks Mondaugen if he has heard of Hitler &
Co., 

Hitler, "as if 'Hitler' were an avant-garde play." And
of course we have the facts, the history the narrator
connects, the 1% of six million. 

 There are historians that claim that the crushing of the
1922 uprising was an extension of colonial/imperial
genocide. But that aside, and while I'm not sure Pynchon had
access to enough history to make the connection a historical
one based on facts, Pynchon makes the connection quite clear
in his fiction. We should not forget that this is
Mondaugen's Story and t has been Stencilized. Stencil is
telling this tale to his father confessor Eigenvalue. 


jbor: 

"Though there is no direct information in either _V._ or
_GR_ it's entirely possible and logical that he is a
Lieutenant of the Weimar
German army at this time, a sort of diplomatic attaché sent
to the former
colony. But he certainly seems much more politically-aware
in _V._ (of the
rumblings of opposition to the Weimar govt within Germany,
both Hitler
*and* Kautsky, as well as of what was going on in Italy at
the time) than he
does in _GR_.  These are hardly "hair-splitting
distinctions" as Doug
contends: they are historical actualities which Pynchon is
aware of and
foregrounding through  his narrative.



 I wrote: 

Yes the mirrors, the effects of those mirrors, carnival,
echoes, but all this aside, it's 1922, so there is obviously
an uprising of the indigenous population. Clearly this is
one of the reasons
for the party. 

Obviously an extension of colonial genocide. 

And surely what is happening (obviously not from the
perspective of those still committing atrocities, genocide,
the **Germans** now using bombs and airplanes to crush the
uprising)  is not just more indigenous uprising, but is of
course an extension of the colonial genocide. 

Germans? Now how could I type Germans? Where the hell did I
Germans from? 

If you turn to David Seed's book 'Fictional Labyrinths' and
turn to that "Dear Mr. Hirsch" letter...

 in the letter Pynchon says, 

"I hope someday you, or
somebody, does a full scale book on the subject." 

Seed provides the following note: 

"At least one such book existed in 1968 - Horst Drechsler's
'Let Us Die Fighting' The Struggle of the Herero and Nama
against German Imperialism (1884-1915) - although it was not
published in English until 1980." 

Now, I have three such books, including 'Let Us Die
Fighting.' In the last month I posted some excerpts from
'Herero Heroes' (1999) and in that book, on page 273, the
author turns to the Bondelswarts, the dog tax, the sale of
children, and the SA army and air force. 

"In 1922, undaunted, and in the interests of settler demands
for labor, the administration introduced a staggered system
of dog tax, whereby the tax to be paid increased
exponentially to the amount of dogs owned.  To a society
which depended on its hunting dogs fro survival, this proved
to be the final straw...the administrator ordered in the
army, police and air force. Following the crush of the
polity, the German consul-General in South Africa noted:" 

Now here Jan-Bart Gewald cites Drechsler's 'Let Us Die
Fighting.'  

And when we turn to Drechsel we get Drechsler's Epilogue
Note #3 

Imp. Col. Off. File No. 2158, p 123, Haug to  the Ger. For.
Off., 13 June 1922. 

And

The out break of the First World War put an end to the
profit bonanza German monopoly capital had enjoyed in South
West Africa. The territory became the object of a bitter
dispute between British and German imperialism. The Rehoboth
tribe, the so called Bastards, who had collaborated with
their masters against the Herero and Nama throughout the
period of German rule, refused to support the Germans any
further on the outbreak of the war because they did not want
to fight against the Union forces of the recently
established Union of South Africa. In retaliation the
Rehobothers were attacked and disarmed by their one time
allies. It should also be noted here that , immediately
after the beginning of the War, the German imperialists went
ahead with their long-planned deportation of the
Bondelswarts to the northern part of the territory. As a
result of the First World War, South West Africa changed
hands, passing under the control of just another predatory
imperialist regimes. For the Herero and the Nama this meant
no improvement in their lot. They were, indeed, forced by
the new rulers of the country to continue toiling for those
who had hitherto been  their colonial masters. What remained
for the Herero and Nama was the bitter realization that,
while imperialists were quite prepared to wage war against
one another, they would in the end come to terms again on
the basis of the joint oppression and exploitation of the
African population. 

A typo, yes. 

On the League of Nations and Hitler's influence,  see the
Epilogue to 'Let Us Die Fighting' 



You said: 

"I don't know that the "political chaos howl[ing] outside"
(235.19) the villa in 1922 and the colonial genocide of 1904
are actually being connected anywhere except in Foppl's
mind. and, indeed,
those bomb-dropping bi-planes come from "the direction of
the
Union" (276.4). They're not  German at all."

The connection, as I said, is not only in Foppl'e mind, it's
in Pynchon's mind and the connection is historical. 
 The connection is also to the Nazis (1% of six million) 
and to American colonialism and genocide as you have
noted in your discussions of the Hirsch letter. 
In fact, the novel V. is all about making these
connections--Imperialism/Colonialism
and Genocide/Political-Religion. 

Eddins has nothing but praise for Pynchon's creation,
comparing  Blicero with  Milton's Satan is a very great
compliment indeed. Of course that's not all that Eddins
says, he says that Pynchon occasionally seems to be, like
Milton, of the Devil's Party. This too is a great
compliment, it's not at all what you seem to imply, and
there, again, no textual support for your accusation. Your
critique of Locke on this point was very good, but of course
you spoiled it with your insults and snide remarks. 
With Eddins thus far you are doing little more than Kai did, 
pulling out sentences and distorting the arguments. 



I'm glad you  have read Eddins now and you have raised one
real serious objection (the Blicero cycle), but let's get
away from the BS, we can
kick around definitions of gnosticism and object to
Voegelin's specific critique of Enlightenment and Germany
and toss Adorno and Jonas into the ring and blah blah blah,
been there done that with Kai, so, if you are interested I
will
try to explain, as best I can, what I think the Eddins
reading has to say about the end of the Novel, from GR.720
(Pan) and Blicero.  Remember what Eddins says about Pirate's
bananas? That will get us started, we needn't bring Lyle
Bland and all that in, we simply need to understand, first,
what Eddins means by "Orphic Naturalism" and second, 
Their gnostic religion, and third, why Eddins says Blicero's
religion  is a demonic orphism. 

If we argue about typos or my use or Eddins' use of the
terms evil,
demonic, Voegelin's satanic, we won't get anywhere
fast...so...let me know. 

BTW, I really do contend that your reading of B/W as an open
homosexual admired by the 175s was completely defeated here,
but if we need to revisit it, by all means.   

Oh, btw, Barry towners, if you go to see William Blake, get
the machine with the head set, Harold Bloom's comments are
worth the  fin. 

Well, it was Blake that said that Milton was of the Devil's 
Party without knowing it.