Gershom & the LED

[John Bailey]

Terrance,

This is a very interesting post. I like it a lot. I don't think that Gersh 
begs to be compared to the LED, but I think there's a huge benefit in doing 
so. Especially considering the LED's rationale for learning to speak in his 
master's tongue...if he doesn't, he will be 'used' for other purposes, or 
even consumed. So he learns to speak English. His 'master's' tongue. 
Although, as you say, this frees him of a master, makes him a British Dog. 
I'm not thinking that the LED is supposed to represent or speak for anyone 
else, but what he says in this regard does have echoes of pretty common 
themes in P's stuff.

Now look at how Gersh talks. In fact, look at how other slaves in M&D talk, 
not even just slaves, but all those who have or feel that they have masters. 
Gersh is perhaps the most complex in this regard.
Gersh speaks English (perhaps I should be saying American, I don't know) and 
he speaks it very well, so well in fact that he can parody it, make jokes 
about how he is perceived as speaking, how the 'slaves'  are imagined to 
talk. Washington buys into this joke, plays along with it, which complicates 
things. Washington is Gersh's master. But they enact a parody of a very 
different relationship...well, hmmm.

Oh and also, I didn't mean to suggest that I find Washington necessarily 
sinister, just some of the tone I find in this chapter. There's a cloud over 
it (not just a green one) which doesn't mean that any of the characters are 
negative (though they might be).

And whilst Gersh may have links to kabbalah/Rat Pack/other persons, there 
have been a lot of Gershoms around, the name means 'A Stranger There', and 
isn't that rare. I think Terrance's point is very good: if there are 
correspondences there, Gersh is firstly Washington's slave, and in the 
context of this book that probably takes precedence. Not that we can't move 
past that, but I'm still stuck on it.


>From: Terrance <lycidas2 at earthlink.net>
>To: "pynchon-l at waste.org" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>Subject: Re: Gershom & the LED
>Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2002 00:00:19 -0500
>
>
>
>Bandwraith at aol.com wrote:
>
>  but for the life of me, I
> > don't quite understand why Pynchon would create a character
> > like Gershom. What's the significance of a black/jewish
> > kabballist as Washington's "man." Help me out of this
> > dilemma.
>
>
>
>I know it's not fair to ask a question as reply, but why did P create
>the LED? What is the significance of the LED?
>
>
>These two characters, it seems to me, are just asking to be compared.
>
>While characters, including both Dixon and Mason  are all very
>interested in the LED's relations with men, the dog's contracts,
>history, philosophical,  theological, linguistic, natural and
>domesticated evolution, etc., Mason and Dixon, don't seem to interested
>in Gershom's. Instead the talk is much the same, travel, wars, language,
>religion, entertainment, business, real estate, contracts, history, but
>Gershom's relations to men, free men, is not discussed at all.
>
>But as readers, We can't forget that Gershom is a slave and that George
>owns
>Gershom and that George  may sell him on the blocks at any time. Gershom
>is nearly completely absurd. How can he be Sammy Davis Jr. or a
>Kabbalist or a Jew? Absurd! He can't be and isn't. But he can be a slave
>of George Washington because we are in America in the latter half of the
>18th century.  And he is a slave.
>
>How could men of reason, a LED even, not conclude that slavery was
>completely absurd? While I agree with most of what Robert posted about
>Labor, it's a very complex arrangement in this novel. Gershom asks the
>boys for a copy of their contract. The boys could sure use a good
>lawyer. That is, if they want to earn what their services are worth.
>Recall that Mason does not want to sign the services of his own boys to
>his own father.
>
>Gershom knows that the boys are poised to make a bundle if they have a
>good contract, a contract with the right clauses that is.
>
>How ironic, for Gershom may be out "moonlighting" at the stand up spots
>and earning a living, but his life is not his own until and unless he
>purchases it, like a piece of property in Washington's Real Estate
>portfolio, thus ending the contract Washington has on his life.
>
>
>The LED has a contract, an agreement with his exhibitors, no one owns
>him, he is, after all, a British DOG. He is able to assert his rights,
>to defend himself in a fight, to defend himself with the law, with a
>contract, a partnership with others who likewise have rights and are
>protected and connected by  law.
>
>Gershom is a slave. All the other fragments Pynchon has shored against
>this unyielding absurdity, are mute.
>
>Another (this time one of my favorite  inter textual comparisons)
>character who sings out to be compared with Gershom is Black Pip of
>Moby-Dick.




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