MDDM World-as-text

Otto ottosell at yahoo.de
Sun Aug 11 19:10:16 CDT 2002


----- Original Message -----
From: "jbor" <jbor at bigpond.com>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Sunday, August 11, 2002 11:15 PM
Subject: Re: MDDM World-as-text


> Otto wrote:
>
> > I'm quite sure that this it what Pynchon is doing, that his WW-II as
> > presented in GR isn't the historical war. If Steven Weisenburger is
right
> > about the dates (December 18, 1944 as the time of the first five
chapters),
> > it is interesting to note that there isn't a V2-hit on London reported
that
> > day; only on Lüttich (Liege) and Antwerpen (I found out due to an
> > offlist-conversation with Douglas Lannark recently). It makes sense to
me
> > that Pynchon carefully has chosen *that* day in order *not* to be a
realist:
>

Rob:
> Except that the "Incoming mail" (6) which Pirate sees in the first chapter
> is the one with the message from Katje in it (71-2) which lands near
> Greenwich (11). It doesn't explode: all that's left is the graphite
cylinder
> which Pirate comes and picks up (20).
>
> The "Any gum, chum?" rescue of the "little girl" happened "[y]esterday",
and
> she'd been "[t]rapped there for two days" (24), so you'd need to work back
> to December 14 or 15, 1944, but I'm not sure that Weisenburger's dating
> schemas are totally reliable.

Isn't that "only" an analepsis? There are rockets reported on the 14th, 15th
and 17th, but not on the 16th. Another only fictional one like Pirate's
V-mail? If Pynchon had been looking for "rocket-free"-days within that
period the 16th (begin of the Ardennes offensive) and the 18th (the OKW
reported that two days later) fit very well. When he uses "historical"
material he's very correct.

Steven Weisenburger writes:
"Episodes 1 through 5 all occur on the same day, which subsequent allusions
pinpoint as Monday, December 18, 1944." (p. 16), and as I wrote to Douglas
too I wish Weisenburger had been a little bit more precise on those
"subsequent allusions", but given the information I now have I tend to take
Weisenburger's opinion as correct.

>I know Douglas has done some work on that.
>
> I'd argue that the more salient "realist" detail is Slothrop recalling
"last
> September when the rockets came" (21), and in particular that "Friday
> evening, last September" when the first V-2 hit:
>
> "The moment was 6:43:16 British Double Summer Time ... " (26)
>

Right, that's referring to the first "historical" V2 on London, but not to
the (as it seems) fictional one opening the novel. Therefore my astonishment
when I read at "Die Wehrmachtsberichte", Bd. 3, p. 370-71, dtv reprint,
April 1985, that there hasn't been one on that date. On the 17th they say
London and Antwerpen (p. 370), on the 19th London, Antwerpen and Lüttich (p.
371).

The first V2 mentioned at the OKW-messages is on Nov. 8, 1944, where they
say:

"Nachdem seit dem 15. Juni der Großraum von London mit nur kurzer
Unterbrechung und wechselnder Stärke unter dem Feuer der "V1" liegt, wird
dieser Beschuß seit einigen Wochen durch den Einsatz eines noch weit
wirksameren Sprengkörpers, der "V 2", verstärkt." (p. 324)

"since a few weeks" it says -- remarkably un-precise, isn't it? On Sept. 8th
nothing is said about V2 (or buzzbombs).

>
> I think that Pynchon's text in GR does engage with the historical war,
just
> as his text in M&D engages with the historical Mason and Dixon.
>

Engage, yes, but correct to the point that when he "invents" things (like
the possibility of V-mail) he even seems to invent the rocket. I cannot
remember at the moment, did Mason & Dixon really visit Washington, what does
the journal say about it? If not, the smoking scene immediately makes a lot
of sense to me.

> Thanks for the quotes from Barth's Friday book. As you say, the same sort
of
> world-as-text/text-as-world ideas figure prominently and often in
Pynchon's
> fiction, and are given voice in Derrida also.
>
> best
>

By the way, my father became POW at Echternach, according to the last
sentence of that pamphlet he'd won the game:
http://www.dhm.de/lemo/objekte/pict/d2f01510/

I'd say, me too, given the 68.000 dead German soldiers during the offensive!

Otto

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