The Adversary

[Dave Monroe]

Okay, good call here, I'd neglected this ...

--- Tim Strzechowski <Dedalus204 at mediaone.net> wrote:
>
> Near the end of Chapter 3, Driblette discusses _The
> Courier's Tragedy_ with Oedipa and refers to the
> Tristero as "The Adversary" (Harper Perennial, 80). 

> it's my understanding that the term "The Adversary"
> is used *solely* in the Book of Job (whose themes
> involve suffering and searching for answers), to
> describe a character which we frequently equate with
> Satan (although we also see the "serpent" in the
> Book of Genesis, nowhere else in the OT does a
> character go by the name "The Adversary"). 

Now, what I'd have liked to have at hand here is
Harold Bloom's Omens of Millenium, wherein the
Venerable Bloom points out that Satan ("shaitan") is
first named as such in, indeed, the Book of Job, and
further claims that the word might not be badly
translated in that context as "prosecuting attorney"
...

> It's also important to stress (and, forgive me, but
> I cannot recall where I read this) that the role
> of the Adversary was traditionally more of a
> "questioner," almost like a lawyer questioning a
> defendant, in an effort to expose human frailty. 

And I think I even have two copies, one I'm hoping to
give to a self-styled gnostic atheist friend (on the
other hand, never give it to a fundamentalist
Christian, I've discovered--I figured, hey, it is
about Christianity, but ...), but sometimes you get
lucky online (and not in that chatroom sense) ...

"It might be helpful here to note that the meaning of
the word 'obstacle' is close to the original sense of
the Hebrew word satan: In The Origin of Satan (1995),
39, Elaine Pagels writes, '... the satan ... was any
one of the angels sent by God for the purpose of
blocking or obstructing human activity. The root stn
means "one who opposes, obstructs, or acts as
adversary."'  Jeffrey Burton Russell, writing in The
Prince of Darkness (1988), 33, states: 'The Hebrew
word satan derives from a root meaning oppose,
obstruct, or accuse.'  In Omens of Millenium (1996),
67, Harold Bloom says satan means 'blocking agent.'"

http://www.iskcon.net/milkocean/texxts/doge/01_02_07.htm

Citing ...

Bloom, Harold.  Omens of Millenium: The Gnosis of
   Angels, Dreams and Resurrection.  New York:
   Riverhead, 1996.

http://prelectur.stanford.edu/lecturers/bloom/excerpts/omens.html

Pagels, Elaine.  The Origin of Satan.
   New York: Random House, 1995.

Russell, Jeffrey Burton.  The Prince of Darkness:
   Radical Evil and the Power of Good in History.
   Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1988.

And dig this, hepcats and hepkittens ...

http://prelectur.stanford.edu/lecturers/bloom/bloomblock.gif

Grue-V.  But to continue ...

> In _A Companion to CoL49_, Grant states:
> 
> "Driblette's name for the Tristero captures its
> dual nature, suggesting the organization's darker,
> Manichaen side as well as its role as the
> champion of the disinherited."

Again, from Slavoj Zizek, On Belief (New York:
Routledge, 2001) ...

"... a more general definition of what heresy is:
in order for an ideological edifice to occupy the
hegemonic place and legitimize the existing power
relations, it HAS to compromise its founding radical
message--and the ultimate 'heretics' are simply those
who reject this compromise, sticking to the original
message." (p. 8)

> Is it too much to assume that Pynchon would have
> known all this, and known the connotations of The
> Adversary when referring to the Tristero as such?
> Given our earlier discussions of God and
> revelations and the role of religiousity in the
> novel thus far, it seems a crime to pass up
> the term "Adversary" when it relates to a major part
> of the novel.  Yet, I wonder if any aspects of the
> Tristero parallel the biblical connotations of The
> Adversary.

Again, who, or what, does the attorney (prosecuting or
otherwise), the "knight of deliverance" (p. 22) who
doesn't (?) deliver (but what, or whom, to whom, or
what?) Metzger serve?  Again, from J. Kerry Grant ...

"The chain of associations forged by these connected
observations makes for an interesting ambiguity in our
attitude toward Metzger.  His name links him by
analogy to competitors of the Thurn and Taxis
organization, and hence to the Tristero, a fact that
accords well with Watson's thesis, which maintains
that through the Tristero Oedipa comes to the brink of
self-discovery, after being rescued by Metzger from
her 'comfortable and complacent' suburban life (61). 
Metzger, however, is Pierce Inverarity's legal
representative and thus is closely associated with the
main current of American capitalism--the equivalent of
the monopolistic Thurn and Taxis dynasty.  This latter
suggestion has ties to the speculation raised by the
discovery that W.A.S.T.E. stands for 'We Await Silent
Tristero's Empire,' and anticipation when the Tristero
itself will take over the monopolistic functions of
the state system (169)." (Grant, Companion, pp. 11-2)

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0108&msg=449&sort=date

Obstacle?  "Butcher's block"?  Okay, free associating
now, so ...


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