V.V. (12) Pynchon's letter to Thomas F. Hirsch

[Dave Monroe]

Very quickly, as I'm just checking in to complain
about the Oscars elsewhere (Gladiator? Russell Crowe?
Traffic, maybe, Ed Harris or even Javier Bardem,
definitely.  And so forth ...).  The bits I'm
interested in, can get to now ...

--- jbor <jbor at bigpond.com> wrote:

> 
> I thought, and correct me if I'm wrong (which I'm
> certain you will), that
> your original presentation of the Hirsch letter as
> evidence had been to
> foreground the connection between the Herero
> genocide and the Shoah, i.e.
> these two sentences:
> 
>     When I wrote _V._ I was thinking of the 1904
> campaign as a sort of
>     dress rehearsal for what later happened to the
> Jews in the 30s and
>     40s. Which is hardly profound; it must occur to
> anybody who gets into
>     it even as superficially as I did.
> 
> That was the context of the discussion at the time,
> and it was that which I
> thought you were (rhetorically or otherwise) QED'ing
> about.

Indeed ...

But the letter
> and the topic is
> certainly relevant to _V._ as well, and to this
> chapter in particular. Which
> is why I cited lengthy extracts from it.

Indeed ...

> OK, this is the crux of it. A notion that the Herero
> genocide was a "dress
> rehearsal" for the Shoah seems to me as if it could
> (should?) be argued as
> just as "problematic to outright mistaken" as the
> distinction between
> literate and preliterate made elsewhere. Pynchon
> even signals such a
> problematisation in the very next sentence of the
> letter:
> 
>      But since reading McLuhan especially,
>     and stuff here and there on comparative
> religion, I feel now the thing
>     goes much deeper.
> 
> So, on the one hand you were taking this alleged
> Herero/Holocaust analogy as
> a given, but contesting (and at the same time, as
> you now admit, 

Is this on the record, prosecutor?  But you will note
that I did indeed along the way note that such
comparisons do intorduce certain problems.  The point
is, and to, apparenbtly, Pynchon, the events are
comparble, and the Herero genocide not only does evoke
the Holocaust, but is, apparently, "intended" to do so
...

  
not even
> considering it, in relation to the fiction) the
> literate/preliterate
> distinction, which, to my reading of the letter, is
> far more
> enthusiastically  and energetically presented (not
> to mention the
> Western/non-Western paradigm being set up and those
> distinct anti-Christian
> overtones there). Selective relativity, double
> standard etc. But
> observations rather than complaints, and peripheral
> to any discussion of the
> text/s, surely.

Again, problematic is problematic, mistaken is
mistaken ...
 
> I think that anachronisms in Pynchon's fiction are
> generally few and far
> between, and that when they do occur they are
> deliberate. But I don't think
> that the reference to "nine planets" was a
> deliberate anachronism here. And,
> in terms of Pynchon "hardly writing 'conventional'
> historical novels", well,
> that argument would (or should) apply as much to the
> Herero genocide and the
> Holocaust as to apparent anachronisms, don't you
> think?

I think Pluto might well be being invoked with teh
same associations it has in Gravity's Rainbow,
"intentional" anachronism or not.  But, as Holton
notes, Pynchon is generally very careful about
historical detail when it comes to events like
genocide ...
 
> And, you're right, the mechanical solar system
> within Foppl's planetarium
> might also have been called an "orrery", although
> that term is of a very
> British derivation and it is unlikely that it would
> have been used in that
> place at that time. Of course, the two terms are
> synonymous:
> 
>     planetarium n. ... 3. a model of the solar
> system, sometimes mechanized
>     to show the relative motions of the planets
> [Collins]

Actuially, all the dialogue there is being trnaslated,
and, trust me, having done my time in teh history of
technology, "orrery" is generally the preferred term
for such machinery, esp. in light of the modern
planetarium.  Pynchon is certainly familiar with both
technologies, just surprised he didn't differentiate,
is all.  Perhaps something along the lines of the
planetarium trope in The Crying of Lot 49 is in
operation here, though I'm more immediately interested
in Holton's reading, which seems perhaps to inform the
questions you posed about that "planetarium" ...


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