V.V.(12) 237.17: ' What was 1904 to these people? '

[JL]

jbor, heavily snipped:
>Is a connection being made
>between this disintegration of morality in times of desperation and outright
>despair, and the rise of political totalitarianism?
and then (from another post):

>I don't know that "a sort of dress rehearsal" does
>quite equate with "events" being "comparable" (or in what ways such a
>comparison might be said to be operating ...)

perhaps it's in the *mechanism*...

  246.32 (hugh to vera): ' your beloved 1904 '
  247.9  (vera to hugh): ' [...] have given me my 1904 '
  248.23 (vera to hugh): ' but the need, [...] what can fill that? '

this is some kind of rathouse (Rathaus??) in which an *interpretation*
of an historical event (as opposed to a direct experience or recollection)
can strike such a personal chord, and inspire 'a certain ownership' (246.35).
Those of a certain disposition can gravitate to it in space, if not in
time, and its power is reinforced by contact with those similarly inclined,
in such a hothouse.  Foppl & co. have indeed projected a world, as you would
expect from 'the last gods on earth' (279.21).

Is Pynchon suggesting that these are the means by which history repeats?
Through the obsessions of individuals, rather than through general ignorance
and the simple similarities of circumstance?

JL
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  and the halls of his memory
  still echo her lies            [ - willie nelson ]
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