Ch. 7 MDDM Attitudes to slavery

[jbor]

paulngale at supanet.com wrote:

> Hence in literary studies we have the so-called 'personal response' theory,
> according to which it's possible to explain a text, in terms of what it
> means to you the reader, without recourse to fancy theories that are
> extraneous to the text.

Somewhat of a glib over-simplification, this. A reader-response approach to
literature, whatever its merits as a tool in the pursuit of the "One And
Only True Meaning" of a passage or text, has been and is currently an
extremely useful and worthwhile strategy in language and literacy
pedagogies. It is also more conducive to developing in young people a love
of literature and reading than those critical regimens which pretend to
exclusive ownership over "Meaning", and wherein interpretation is the
sacrosanct domain of the critic, something to be imposed by an "expert"
rather than discovered for oneself in the act *of* reading. It's a very
unPynchonian interpretative paradigm also:

    But as we all know, rock'n'roll will never die, and education too, as
    Henry Adams always sez, keeps going on forever. (_SL_ 'Intro', p. 23)

> Personally I find this obscurantist, a good example
> of jargon celebrated for its own sake; not coincidentally, I often find the
> results unreadable because deceitful. The personal here is a construct.

As also is the "critical". The "personal" is far from deceitful; it's
honest.

> I
> would also call this theory unlikely, given that we all live in the real
> world and are probably not unique as individuals: by this I mean we can only
> make sense of our experiences through language we share with others, not
> that there aren't aspects of our experience that we don't share with others.

This formulation presupposes that language and phenomena share a 1:1
correspondence, which is demonstrably incorrect. Derrida's "il n'y a pas
d'hors texte" is often misconstrued as some relativistic denial of the
material existence of the world. In fact, it is a conception of social
spaces (organisations, institutions, identities, relationships etc) as well
as (re)presentations of material objects as things which are always
discursive in nature:

    The fact that every object is constituted as an object of discourse has
    nothing to do with whether there is a world external to thought, or with
    the realism/idealism opposition. An earthquake or the falling of a brick
    is an event that certainly exists, in the sense that it occurs here and
    now, independently of my will. But whether their specificity as objects
    is constructed in terms of 'natural phenomena' or 'expressions of the
    wrath of God' depends upon the structuring of a discursive field. What
    is denied is not that such objects exist externally to thought, but the
    rather different assertion that they could constitute themselves as
    objects outside any discursive conditions of emergence. (Ernesto Laclau
    & Chantal Mouffe. _Hegemony and socialist strategy: Towards a radical
    democratic politics_. London: Verso, 1985 p. 108)

Which brings me to the subject. Slavery exists at the Cape. It is obvious,
apparent to the characters and narrative agents, and directly referenced in
the text: 

    "Yes? Yes? Observe the Sky,-- instead of what, pray? [...]
    "'Of course,' this isn't a pretext? To observe anything more
    Worldly,-- Our Fortifications, Our Slaves,-- nothing like that,
    eh?" (59.11)

Apart from the great visual of Bonk, who "glowers and aims his abdomen in
different directions as he speaks", there is an extreme paranoia here
(legitimate enough from poor, ill-educated Bonk's perspective: Who willingly
travels halfway around the world to look up into the sky?!), but one which
neither Mason nor Dixon notice, these two being too wrapped up in their own
paranoias either to show caution or to take the advantage (cf. 75.19). And
there is the way Bonk speaks their words back at them, distrusting them and
everything they say and stand for due to the very fact of their otherness.
But what he instantly foregrounds here are the two essential differences of
this social space and the space they (and we) have come from: "Our
Fortifications, Our Slaves". Note the pronoun. Note the capitals. Blithe,
neither D nor M (nor indeed we) even notice. And then we are off on our own
Cook's Tour with the daffy duo into the heart and hearth of this
*puritanical* Calvinist society and this documented history, where both the
"Fortifications" and the "Slaves" loom large but remain unseen even so.

Both Mason and Dixon discuss it, indeed, they "entertain prolong'd
Phantasies upon the Topick." (69.10) In their developing intimacy they
indulge in a little bit of vicarious, if not quite guilty, lust on the
subject. And yet, from their superior, self-indulgent perspectives, the
institution of slavery is virtually overlooked, taken as given, variously
envisaged as merely the opportunity for smorgasboard or a tool of some not
entirely unpleasant sexual torment, as "Gala" or something which is to be
expected in one of the colonies of Hell. It is difficult to ignore the
significance of the way that Cape Slavery is here being perceived by these
two, particularly knowing the way the theme will develop in the narrative
(and history) yet to come.

Politically-speaking and in the text, D & M's oneupmanship and the contest
for primacy of their respective versions of "Englishness" pales into
insignificance beside the slavery issue, is revealed for the petty bickering
which it is. As we (and they) shall soon enough see.

Pynchon's remark in the _Slow Learner_ 'Intro' about "the success of the
'new left' later in the '60's" explicitly and obviously refers to the
breakthroughs in the Civil Rights arena which occurred at this time, not the
anti-War movement (which could hardly be called a "success" in the '60s),
and he then actually criticises the "new left" for not being able to "get
together politically" with the working class. (p. 7) I too agree that this
is a telling statement for his fiction.

best