Pynchon's Badass

[Phil Wise]

Hmmmn (scratches head)

I may be a little wobbly on this part of the book (it is a novel that does
that...) and I'm not as intimate with the miniature of the text as you.
However, I tend to understand Blicero/Weissmann as a fascist in the
psychological terms set out by Klaus Theweleit in Male Fantasies (a
contestible reading I admit, but one with considerable persuasive power for
me).  It seems to me that the proto-fascist there fears death within, as a
component of the bodily process, but desires a transcendent, firey death(one
the "spirit" can survive, perhaps).  B/W's characterisation of corporeal
life as "infection and death" is a negative reading of nature (if you like),
which sets it up in a binary opposition to extremely romantic version of
love he also sets up, one that has no reference to bodies at all.

I think that by characterising life as a cycle of infection and death, he
may be reading negatively the sort of "low" natural processes elsewhere seem
to be associated positively with the preterite (cf Roger and Pig at "their"
dinner, announcing "snot stew" and so on).  Pynchon associates the rejection
and denial of such processes as an end-product of "rationalism", which is
what I think the diversion onto the toiletship the text takes is about.

Especially since Brock Vond is so clearly based on a reading of Theweliet,
and that in Vineland Pynchon makes no bones about calling a fascist a
fascist, I have no trouble with the idea that Pynchon was forming similar
views as to the psychology of a fascist in his portrayal of Weissmann in GR,
intentional fallacy or not.  Please be clear: W/B is a very complex
character; I don't intend that fascist is used as a pejoritive but rather as
descriptive, a tool to help understand him.  In Theweleit's terms, Their
existence on a high plain, bodiless, links Them with fascism.


So, yes, the psychological reality W/B inhabits leads him to read corporeal
life as a cycle of infection and death, just as the psychological reality
Slothrop inhabits leads him to read the world as overloaded with meanings.
So, I guess i'm disagreeing with you're clarification - I think he is
talking about nature's cycle; I don't see that he rejects his fascism, and I
do believe that he is a fascist.

Regards
Phil


----- Original Message -----
From: "David Morris" <fqmorris at hotmail.com>
To: <philwise at paradise.net.nz>; <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Saturday, March 24, 2001 10:10 AM
Subject: Re: Pynchon's Badass


>
> After a bit more thought I believe I understand your point, at least in
> part.  You are saying that to W/B there is no other cycle.  He doesn't
even
> see a Natural Cycle against his own/Theirs.  I might agree with this, but
I
> wouldn't call it a fascist thing.  This is just the way W/B percieves the
> real world to be, and in a way common to Their people, just much more
> intensely felt by W/B.
>
> DM
>
>
> >From: "Phil Wise"
> > > >
> > > >"I want to break out--to leave this cycle of infection and
> > > >death. I want to be taken in love: so taken that you and I
> > > >will be gathered, inseparable, in the radiance of what we
> > > >would be come...." GR.724
> > > >
> >
> >Apologies for butting in here, but, given the fascist terror of the
> >corporeal body and their desire to transcend it (into a machine-like
body,
> >be it an actual machine or the "machine" of the military, or in death
this
> >purity of light W/B refers to) could it be that W/B is merely expressing
> >his fascism here?  In other words, that it isn't the "cycle of infection
> >and death" (i.e corporeal life) that is under contestation, but his
reading
> >of it as merely this cycle - that it is a problem of reading (in a very
> >broad sense) the meaning of life?
> _________________________________________________________________
> Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
>
>