MDDM Washington & Gershom

[jbor]

on 16/7/02 8:05 AM, Dave Monroe at davidmmonroe at yahoo.com wrote:

> no matter how
> much latitude he has under Pynchon's Washington, he
> is, nonethless, UNDER him.

Any textual evidence for this? I'm interested.

My point has always and only been that even though Pynchon's GW realises
that he is Gershom's (*"nominal"*) master, he treats and respects him as an
equal, and that, because of the way Pynchon depicts the relationship this
portrait of George is quite complimentary.


on 16/7/02 1:33 AM, Doug Millison at millison at online-journalist.com wrote:

> And, after Washington says "That
> voice, Mason! 'tis my Tithable, Gershom!" (p. 572), Pynchon doesn't show
> Washington doing or saying anything, nobody is pursuing him or addressing
> him in any way, Gershom continues to tell jokes. Washington literally fades
> from the scene.

Doug continues to omit and rearrange the dialogue in this scene to suit his
purposes. Gershom's initial spoken intervention in the scene is not to tell
jokes at all. He says:

      "Excuse me, do I hear that Word again? In this Smoak 'twould seem, so
    are we all." 

And *that* is when George recognises Gershom's voice:

      "Eeh!" Washington grabbing Mason.
      "Colonel, Sir," twitching away, "'twould be far preferable,-- "
      "That voice, Mason! 'tis my Tithable, Gershom!" (572.28-32)

Washington's still there in the scene at 573.15, when Mason reciprocally
"put[s] the Clutch" upon George as Chas now recognises young Nathe's voice.
The reason George remains silent after (very probably) taking the racist
gent to task (572.26) for using the word "Nigger" is that, suddenly becoming
aware that Gershom is present, George is extremely concerned for Gershom's
safety in this place. The reason Gershom intervenes with the provocative
comment at 572.28 in the first place is to stop George from blowing his
cover by getting into an argument or brawl with the racist man.

I can't really recall whether Doug in fact offered an alternative
interpretation - perhaps he did - or if he just said that the whole scene
was definitively ambiguous and ruled that my interpretation was wrong.

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