The Onomastics of Control

[Bandwraith at aol.com]

Pynchon is very particular about names and naming. The relevant
examples include Wicks's lament at the beginning of M&D regarding
"the crime of anonymity," the GR narrator's coments on the German
compulsion for naming, the Vineland/Frenesi revelation regarding the
use (and abuse) of a God-like "hacker" of human individual lives and
deaths merely to spell out its own name, and, of course, Pynchon's 
own predilection for quirky names.

I think, as well, that his use of "Kenosha" can be analyzed from
the same perspective of his special concern for the act of naming.

Like Chicago and Milwaukee and a hundred other place names strung
along the shores of the Great Lakes, "Kenosha" is indigenous, not
European. But these names, like the landscapes they stand for, have
been appropriated, occupied, and so, dominated and controlled by
white euros. Indigenous naming is much more analog- process/
context oriented- than the white euro obssession with digital abstraction
and control. In the Slothropian "guided" dream following induction
by Na+ Amytal, prn, Tyrone seems to be seeking refuge in the 
typical white american appropriation of native mystery andi nnocence,
albeit, unconsciously:

     Follow? "Cherokee" comes wailing up from the
     dance floor below, over the hi-hat, the string
     bass, the thousand sets of feet where moving 
     rose lights suggest not pale Harvard boys and 
     their dates, but a lotta dolled-up redskins. The 
     song playing is one more lie about white crimes.
     (GR, p. 73, PL)

Indians that are not Indians. The riff that follows this passage,
describing the inversion of the tendency of white adoloscents
to appropriate "Indian-ness"   to soothe their own alienation, 
by Charlie Parker's incredible artistry-

     to gainsay the Man's lullabies, to subvert the
     groggy wash of the endlessly, gutlessly over-
     dubbed strings... So that Prophecy, even up
     here on rainy Massachusetts [Indian Name]
     Avenue, is beginning these days to work itself
     out in "Cherokee,"...

But, alas, Slothrop's   reflexive attempt to hide amongst
"The Indians" is doomed to failure. Navajo may be the 
perfect code to confuse the Japanese, but Slothrop cannot 
deny his own racial origins. This sets the stage for his plunge
into the toilet-wonderland, away from "Red" but not before Red's
"true name" comes to Slothrop halfway down the toilet.

Bandwraith

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http://college.hmco.com/history/readerscomp/naind/html/na_029400_placenames.ht
m


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