SLSL "TSR" Fatal Attraction

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In a message dated 12/4/02 7:55:15 PM, donkelly at epix.net writes:

<< Just checking my mail today, you probably got your answer already but:

What got "the Zionists out and doing" was the Dreyfuss Affair. The 
reference is right at the top on page 390 (in my Penguin copy), after 
the wierd incident between the U-boat and the USS John E. Badass, where 
the narrator asks if this will get the anarchists to hook up with "Der 
Springer" on the Heath.

Hope that's the one you were looking for - Don >>

Thanks to ALL who supplied the answer to my query about this- much
appreciated. I was astounded when I rediscovered the context of the
GR reference. One of my favorites, beginning with:

    Now what sea is this you have crossed, exactly, and what sea is
    it you have plunged more than once to the bottom of, alerted, full
    of adrenalin, but caught really, buffaloed under the epistemologies
    of these threats that paranoid you down and out, caught in this
    steel pot, softening to de-vitaminized mush inside the soup-stock
    of your own words, your waste submarine breath? It took the
    Dreyfus Affair to get the Zionists out and doing, finally: what will
    drive you out of your soup-kettle? Has it already happened? Was
    it tonight's attack and deliverance? Will you go back to the Heath,
    and begin your own settlement, and wait there for your Director
    to come?

In the preceding pages are the description of der Springer in his 
"controlled ecstasy of megalomania... convinced that his film has 
"somehow brought them (the Schwarzkommando- ?minotaurs?) into 
being," his fantasy that it is his mission "'to sow in the Zone seeds 
of reality;'" that he cansomehow through his cinematic art, "'take 
down your fences and your labyrinth walls,' and provide a tendril that 
will 'lead you back to the Garden you hardly remember...' "

The imagery is Kabbalistic. Given my current reading material on
Gershom Scholem and the Kabbalah which is percolating in my brain, 
and, given the current discussion of TSR, and, given GR- which is always
on my backburner- a connection came together. Oddly, the way it
first presented itself to me was through the Zionist angle. That is,
in trying to do justice to TSR- not just taking for granted that it
is an immature work by an immature artist- but really trying to treat
it as an independent work of art: me and it- I was struck by the
question of Nathan's early lack of motivation, and then, what spurred 
him on, finally, to get "out" and doing."

Click. GR.

Nathan is a secular Jew; he may even be slightly sympathetic
to the common christianity of the company of the goyim in which
he finds himself, which, includes, given the literary overlays
provided, elegantly or not, a healthy dose of paganism. But the
tradition, the only tradition, I think, which successfully mediated
such a jumbalaya of mystical elements, and right from the get-go
of Western Civilization in its ongoing dialectic with monotheism,
was/is gnosticism.

Click. Gershom Scholem.

Now Scholem, also a secular Jew (or "religious anarchist" as he has
referred to himself- I'll try to provide quotes and references later)
makes a really big deal about Zionism and the different forces in
the Diaspora which were angling for a Jewish state, some of which,
despite being a Zionist himself, he strongly disagreed with, and even
associated with an apocalyptic messianism of the type that resulted
in the catastrophe of the "Jewish" messiah, in 1665. It is more
complicated than that, natch. Scholem even sees "positives" in the
Sabbatian catastrope, as he does for Jewish mysticism, the early 
Kabbalah, neoplatonists, and both Jewish and Christian gnosticism
all percolating and cross fertilizing in and about the mediterranean
around the 2nd century c.e.

It doesn't really matter if Pynchon knew about Scholem's work at
the time he wrote TSR, because he was surly aware of many of the
same mythological issues: the Minoans, the white goddess v. God
dialectic, the interaction between Hellenism and Hebraicism, the
mutual borrowings- especially in the Gnostic/Kabbalah/Hermeticism-
area, etc. He was dealing with the same stew and its more esoteric
ingredients, trying to get a fix on Western Civ.

I just don't know how much freight Nathan can carry, or, how many
of these historical, mystical, cultural, etc., themes can be strapped
on his back, or, legitimately ascribed to the coupling in the swamp.

So, what is it that motivates him, finally? And what are the results
of his actions? How much of his character is symbollic? I'm still trying 
to work out the implications, trying to tie it all up with various ribands, 
etc., see which style fits the best.

Thanks again for the help with spot that reference.

respectfully