MDDM Gershom's Intervention (was ...

[jbor]

I tend to agree that the bits quoted from Sheila Walker's book aren't
ahistorical or preposterous in themselves, and that the rhetorical move from
"slaves" to "enslaved peoples" or "enslaved Africans" is valid. She is
certainly a biased commentator, however, and it needs to be emphasised that
what she writes, the generalisations about behaviours and attitudes she
makes, and what Pynchon shows in _M&D_ in the relationship between George
and Gersh, are two different things entirely. Standard tactic.

Nowhere in _M&D_ is GW depicted as "attempting to define the total reality"
of Gersh - quite the opposite in fact, in terms of the absolute liberty to
be and do and say whatever he wants that Gersh is afforded by GW - and the
"jive" version of the slave-master relationship they create together is a
*shared* joke between them rather than dissimulation against George on
Gersh's part, and it's performed at the expense of stereotypes which
sanctimonious Philadelphians (and someone like Walker, too, I'd add) have
concocted and propagated. Gershom following GW to Raleigh's Billiard-Room in
Ch. 58, and intervening there on George's behalf, does reenforce the mutual
bonds of affection, respect and loyalty between them which Pynchon
establishes in Ch. 28.

Elsewhere in his depictions of slaves and their masters in this text, such
as at the Cape, at Lord Lepton's, or the incident with the Maryland
slave-driver later on, and in his other novels, stories and non-fiction,
Pynchon certainly portrays a range of different relationships between
slaveholders and enslaved Africans, including the sort of stereotypical
generalisation Walker proposes, and there are ignorant racists aplenty all
through his texts. But in his texts there are also white Americans and
Europeans, such as GW, who aren't racist, and black Africans and
African-Americans who recognise this, and this is something which doesn't
fit into Walker's schema as it has been presented here. The relationship
between Enzian and Weissmann in _GR_, for example, is another which subverts
the one mould Walker tries to create.

best



on 13/7/02 5:25 AM, MalignD at aol.com at MalignD at aol.com wrote:

> I shouldn't get into this, but it is worth pointing out that Sheila Walker is
> an Afrocentrist, with all that implies; i.e., at least at this stage of
> things, a field of study many of the claims of which are grossly ahistorical
> and patently preposterous.
> 
> She is apparently not terribly consistent either.  In addition to her
> comments on slavery as noted [...], she also has said, "We need to stop
> talking about slaves. I don't believe in slaves."  And, "The wealth of the
> Americas and the western world-all the Peri-Atlantic world, was created by
> Africans."
> 
>