Gershom & the LED

[Bandwraith at aol.com]

In a message dated 1/18/02 12:02:32 AM, lycidas2 at earthlink.net writes:

>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? 

You might just as well ask why the LED decided to make his mark at
the exact spot he did: "This seems to be all right." (20.31). It might 
have been arbitrary, maybe not. Anyway, dogs run free.

>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. 

Washington is a free and not unwise man, but the synergy of his blackness 
and jewishness makes Gershom much more than just a rocket (techno)
seeker, or a mystic. Gersh himself brings up the relationship
between master and slave. Note the quotation mark before the line-
"Actually they're Slave-and-Master Joaks, re-tailored for these
Audiences." (284.25) I do not think this is Wicks. Not only does Gersh 
suggest the ambivalance of M&D toward their own roles and who their 
real masters are, but also, in no uncertain terms, he let's them know 
they're part of the audience. His audience. 

There is something in the make-up of Gershom that is beautiful, 
complex and powerful.  I think he can best be described as an 
"attractor". Might not there be such basins of attraction swirling 
in the stream of Western Civilization, Pynchon seems to imply, 
serving as the basis for  "order... in Chaos?"

Gershom's power of attraction seems to stem from his moral 
vision, which transcends irony, and which is legitimated by his 
unique make-up. The combination of African and Jew tends to limit 
any after-taste of exploitation of either group by the author,
yet rings true historically. He is definitely a "tricky weave."

"Each of Gershom's "Joax" underlines the mutual co-dependence 
of The King and his Fool. Perhaps The Fool is a stand-in for "the 
masses", the co-dependence with the king forming the basis of 
social morality. 

Traditionally  "history" has been written by the victorious, made
to smoothly coalesce around the personalities of the powerful, 
such as Washington's. The figure of Gershom suggests that at 
the center of such nacreous coalescences might reside something 
more fundamental, irritating and difficult to embrace- at least w/r/t 
American History.