Sanders, "The Politics of Literary Reinscription ..."

[jbor]

There is a lot that is interesting in what you've posted from Sanders' 
article. However, I'm not sure that Pynchon does "parody" the history (i.e.
the actual historical events which are depicted or referenced, such as the
rise and ultimate suppression of Abraham Morris's rebellion in 1922; or the
slave trek with von Trotha, and the details about the labour camp on the
Atlantic coast, from 1904), and I agree with Pynchon that he hasn't really
gotten the "African side of it" in _V._ at all.

I think that Enzian (who, like Abraham Morris, had a European father and a
black African mother), the other Schwarzkommando, and the descriptions of
pre-colonial Herero cosmology and tribal life in _GR_, are an attempt by
Pynchon to remedy what he saw as missing from 'Mondaugen's Story', once he
did come across the stuff "he *should have* researched for _V._" (Hirsch
letter, my emph.).

And, just on Weissmann: being 1956 in _V._, if there was a deliberate
"alignment" or "continuity" between the characterisations of Weissmann in
'Mondaugen's Story' and in _GR_ then I would have expected that Mondaugen,
or Stencil, might have mentioned that Lt. Weissmann was one of Mondaugen's
commanding officers when the latter "worked, yes, at Peenemunde, developing
Verteltungswaffe Eins and Zwei." (_V._ 227-8) I don't think that, while
writing _V._, Pynchon had the slightest intention of resurrecting this
caricaturish figure in another novel.

best

----------
>From: "Dave Monroe" <davidmmonroe at hotmail.com>
>

> Reinterpreting the documents and
> writing his own, more or less parodic, version of the events, he fabulates a
> story with fictional characters.  Although this is as close as he gets to
> the "African side of it," he succeeds more than he intimates with Hirsch.
> (90)