Unions & Bloody Situation

[Terrance]

Herbert's relationship to V., his dilemma, his situation,
the "Bloody situation" is constructed, influenced directly
by his views of his father's view of V & Company and by his
being the Centuries Child (Henry Adams) and a motherless
child.  

"There is more behind and inside V. than any of us had
suspected. Not who, but what: what is she." 

The "Bloody Situation" appears to be structuring the events
of the novel, of history. What is the "Bloody Situation" and
who or what is She? Who are THEY? What is the power, the
force inexplicable? 

In the Chicago Chapter of The Education, Adams discusses
Silver and Gold, morality, the tower of Babel, the Banking
system: 

"Blindly some very powerful energy was at work, doing
something that nobody wanted done. Evidently the force was
one; its operation was mechanical; its effect must be
proportional to its power; but no one knew what it meant,
and most people dismissed it as an emotion - a panic - that
meant nothing." 

Henry Adams, referring to himself in the third person, talks
about  brother Brook's view of History. This Law of History
is paradoxical. 

 (does P turn  East? Not any more than Emerson or Melville.
He is, as his best critics recognize, a traditional American
novelist) 

Everyday, the existential reality of the present, the day's
facts and figures, overrun, outpace and erase even the
collected thoughts of history, accelerating and breaking the
boundaries of history.  

BTW, Although I like Robert Holton's essay (excerpted here
by Mr. Monroe, it is "In the Rathouse with Thomas Pynchon:
Reading V.")  I think he could do without "the postmodern
mirror" because the danger of relativism is not at issue.
Although I like his use of White and Lyotard, it is Adams
that he should discuss. Why? Because Pynchon's source, his
most important source for the Novel, perhaps for his all of
his novels, is Henry Adams. 

Adams says, " in the social dis equilibrium  between capital
and labor, the logical outcome was not collectivism, but
anarchism." 

"Pynchon and Brown explicitly reject Marxism as a political
philosophy and theory of human nature, and for the same
reason: its materialism ignores the fact that the worlds is
projection of spirit, and its much touted dialectical method
is merely a cover for the perverted millennialism, itself an
excuse for totalitarian structures."

                        			Wolfley

Also see, Graham Benton's  Oklahoma City University Law
Review essay,  "Thomas Pynchon and the Political Philosophy
of Anarchism."

Pynchon also rejects Anarchism. 

What is the question?

 The answer is blowing in the wind.  

Can we take some solace, some comfort, some Passion (Love?)
from a metaphysical, a theological, a political history? 

If we are children of the 20th century and this force
belongs to the mechanical Virgin, oh century's children "the
whole consolidation of mechanical force, which ruthlessly
stamped out the life of the class into which Adams was born,
created monopolies capable of controlling the new energies
that America adored" and has written its history in Blood.
In V., we meet the  "sons and friends of the originals."
They, THEY, "had been opponents once."  

Yesterday, I read that the Nation's factories are  now
operating at  75% of capacity. This is the lowest figure in
almost ten years. Some say that the manufacturing and
industrial sectors of the economy are in recession. What
will Greenspan do now? That's the question. Has he done
enough? Too Much? On Christmas Eve, 1956, 35% of Americans
were Union workers. Now, only 15%, around 18MM are Union
workers. The Taft-Hartley Act was passed in 1947 and shortly
thereafter, the AFL and the CIO merged. Pynchon goes to the
NY Times for V. There he would have read that "National
Security" interests (whatever they are) give power to the
president to end labor strikes.

I still don't think Benny got paid, well, he did and he
didn't. What could bring skilled Union Shop labor together
with unskilled alligator hunters? 

The Bloody Sewer Situation?  

"YOU live your life like a canary in a coal mine..."