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

[jbor]

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>From: "Otto" <o.sell at telda.net>
>

snip

> But since reading
> McLuhan especially, and stuff here and there on
> comparative religion, I feel now the thing goes much
> deeper." (240)

I guess the crucial question is, of course, "much deeper" than what? I would
assume "much deeper" than "thinking" the "hardly profound" thought that "the
1904 campaign [was] a sort of dress rehearsal for what later happened
to the Jews in the 30's and 40's", which is what Pynchon had been thinking
when he was "writing _V._", a time when he had only "superficially
investigated the topic. Seeing as the rest of the letter goes on to talk at
length about some of these other "deeper" thoughts that Pynchon had been
having since "writing _V._", I don't see any problem whatsoever with this
assumption.

> Given the fact that there's a historical continuity from those of 1904 to
> the ones of 1933 I still think his original idea is quite appealing to me.

I actually think, on the strength of what he writes in the Hirsch letter,
that Pynchon perhaps finds (or found, as of 1969 at least) that paragraph at
244-245 in _V._ as somewhat regrettable (i.e. "hardly profound",
"superficial" etc). And, stylistically, *as well as* thematically and
historically, I'd agree that it is especially unsatisfactory also.
Certainly, the representation of the Herero in _GR_, both pre- and
post-1904, does focus emphatically on "the notion, apparently widely-held at
the time, that the Hereros were deliberately trying to exterminate
themselves", a notion which Pynchon reiterates in the letter as one he finds
"perfectly plausible".

The comparison with "the Incas" and "a crippled and hopelessly outnumbered
hog drover from Estremadura" (i.e. Pizarro: Seed, p.204, n.11) nails it in
my opinion. What have Pizarro or the Incas to do with 1904 or 1933?

> The "thing" really "goes much deeper", I would like to expand this "allusive
> chain" to the dodoes (pre-1904) and all mankind (the end of GR).
> For if we can extinguish some kind of animal, and a "small" (Herero) or
> bigger (Jews, Poles, Russians) human population the next logical step is the
> development of techniques to annililate all mankind. That this development
> has been executed by techniques that were taken over from the same who had
> built Auschwitz makes it even more fitting.

I think you might be embellishing somewhat on the contents of the letter, as
well as on the text of _GR_. Why is the "annihilation of mankind" the "next
logical step" to religious or colonial imperialism? I thought that the
imposition of some utopian social order was the general aim of such
programs.

I think I read the depictions of the Herero "genocide"/suicide, the dodoes,
the Gadarene swine, the lemmings, Armageddon et. al. (in _GR_, at least), as
exemplifications of various human and natural processes or responses rather
than some "allusive chain" of historical cause and effect.

best