MDDM Ch. 67 Various

[jbor]

Otto wrote:

> 1. Is it really more far out than naming a "German" Herero Enzian or giving
> GW's house-slave the Jewish name Gershom?

The whole thing with the naming of Enzian by Weissmann after the Rilke poem
is spelt out in the text. Gershom is a much more fleshed out
characterisation in the novel, and there is that Gershom Nimmo who was GW's
appointed surveyor for the Great Dismal Swamp where all the slaves were
hiding out and perhaps being cared for by Southern samaritans. With these
"Indians!" it's little more than a list of names. I don't think it's far out
- well, a couple of the names are way out there, I guess - I just didn't
know what to make of it. Bandwraith's ideas hold up pretty well I think, and
there seems to be deliberate pluralism in it all, as if names don't really
matter to the Native Americans at all. (Cf. their extended amusement over
the "Tribe with no name" at 663.33.)

> 2. Contrary to the historical record at least he lets them have names and by
> doing so, personality.

I don't know that he does do this. I don't get any sense of individuality or
characterisation of any of them. By Ch. 68 they're nameless again: "The
Indians laugh." (662.17)

> 3. Wasn't it a white & racist habit to rename colonised people instead of
> leaving them their birth names?

Like Robinson Crusoe. But it's Pynchon rather than anyone in the text who
has named them. And these "Indians" are actually free, and their lands are
still theirs, as I understand it.

best