"We drank the blood of our enemies ... "

[John Lundy]

While I see your point, I think it is open to another interpretation. 
 Pynchon is asking the reader "Do you want to put this part in?"  It is a 
dare, a Kierkegaardian challenge that we show the courage to be.  I agree 
that it is ultimately cryptic, jbor, but that's what makes it so powerful 
and delicious.  In a way that transcends analysis, this passage speaks 
directly to the reader. The choice is ultimately ours whether we remain 
strangers to others and even, perversely, ourselves, but TP isn't going to 
let it slide without at least pitching it up to us.

On Thursday, 18 October 2001 20:50, jbor [SMTP:jbor at bigpond.com] wrote:
> lycidas2 at earthlink.net wrote:
>
> >> "...Between two station marks, yellow crayon through the years of 
grease and
> >> passage, 1966 and 1971, I tasted my first blood. Do you want to put 
this
> >> part in?] We drank the blood of our enemies.  That's why you see 
Gnostics so
> >> hunted.  The sacrament of the Eucharist is really drinking the blood 
of the
> >> enemy.  The Grail, the Sangraal, is the bloody vehicle.  Why else 
guard it
> >> so sacredly? Why should the black honor-guard ride half a continent, 
half a
> >> splintering Empire, stone night and winter day, if it's only for the 
touch
> >> of sweet lips on a humble bowl?  No, it's mortal sin they're carrying: 
to
> >> swallow the enemy, down into the slick juicery to be taken in by all 
the
> >> cells.  Your officially defined 'mortal sin,' that is.  A sin against 
you.
> >> A section of your penal code, that's all. [ The true sin was yours: to
> >> interdict that union.  To draw that line.  To keep us worse than 
enemies,
> >> who are after all caught in the same field of shit--to keep us 
strangers."
> >> (GR 862)
> >
> > This is page 738-39 in my copy.
> >
> > So, what does it mean to you? I mean, what the hell is this guy talking
> > about?
> >
> > This is a spokesman. He's being interviewed by the Wall Street Journal.
> > I think it is safe to say that the WSJ is THEIR newspaper.
>
> Is it safe to assume that "the Spokesman" here is "Kabbalist spokesman 
Steve
> Edelmann"? (753.8)
>
> Anyway, I think the parentheses within the Spokesman's statement come 
from
> another voice, a voice supposedly standing for the author's voice 
addressing
> or daring the publisher (of the novel) to include this confession: "Do 
you
> want to put this part in?". I'd argue that generally a square bracket 
[thus]
> equates to an insertion within a quoted passage or narrative excerpt by 
an
> extraneous author or editor, like a stage direction in a play for 
example,
> whereas a regular bracket (thus) indicates an elaboration or digression 
by
> and consistent with the speaker/voice/narrator. Pynchon uses the latter 
type
> in _GR_ far more often than the former, which already marks this 
particular
> passage as unusual; and while there are many and varied intrusions into 
the
> veneer of the narrative/s this is one which has captured the imagination 
of
> many readers because it seems so loaded with significance and emotive 
force,
> but is ultimately so damned cryptic. When the parenthetical commentary 
takes
> over again in this passage at the very end of "the interview" the final
> lines, which were, of course, excised from the citation posted, are: "We
> drank the blood of our enemies. The blood of our friends, we cherished." 
And
> then comes the catalogue entry of the fragment of Dillinger's 
blood-soaked
> shirt.
>
> I don't know what to make of this parenthesis either but have always
> suspected that it is something very personal, confessional, private, from
> Pynchon himself. It clearly has nothing to do with Afghanistan 2001. Or
> Vietnam. Or any historical war.
>
> best
>
>
>
> > But what on earth is this spokesman talking about?
> > I mean I have a lot of ideas about the passage, but what do you think 
it
> > says?