ATDTDA (2): J. (P)ierpont Morgan (33.27)

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

I've been looking for co-joined references to the Pynchon 
clan and J. P. Morgan. This leads us back to Charles 
Hollander's "Magic Eye" interpretation of "The Crying of 
Lot 49". In these cases, he seems to be on pretty firm 
ground. J. P. Morgan--the House of Morgan--had the 
Pynchon fortune to lose, and did. It's the primary cause 
of Pynchon's "disinheritance". So any reference to J. P. 
Morgan should stand out from the text, have deeper 
personal meaning for the author. Pynchon's family 
history seems to be the connective subtext for all his 
novels, and the expanding---sometimes exploding--- 
web of family relationship is one of the central themes 
of Against the Day.


"Thus Oedipa's concern with Tristero leads us to the 
relation between Thurn and Taxis and their allies the 
Rothschilds. The House of Rothschild was a frequent 
banking ally of the House of Morgan as well from the 
1870s through the 1920s (and perhaps is to this day).

Through Oedipa, then, Pynchon misdirects us to a French 
history of European postal systems, to Thurn and Taxis, to 
the Rothschilds, and to the Morgans, in whose sphere of 
influence Pynchon's relatives operated (before the stock 
market crash of 1929) one of this country's largest stock 
brokerages, Pynchon & Co. Morgans and Rothschilds, 
Yankees and Jews: the threads are coming together. . . ."

" . . . .As Jay Gould enthymematically implies his vanquisher, 
J. P. Morgan, the Second World War references and 
allusions imply the German war against the Jews. . . . "


". . . .Tremaine, incidentally, shares his given name with one 
of the five Rockefeller brothers, sons of John D. Rockefeller, 
Jr. Winthrop Rockefeller, twice elected governor of Arkansas, 
was "Widely regarded as the shnook, shlemiel, and shlepper 
of the family, by the Cousins as a black sheep" (Lundberg, 
RS 272). Pynchon links the Rockefellers to the Nazis by 
naming the owner of the "Swastika Shop" (168) Winthrop. 
The novel contains many German allusions, and, as we will 
see, allusions to Rockefeller retainers Forrestal, Dulles and 
McCarthy; and Pierce Inverarity evokes Pierce-Waters Oil, in 
which the Rockefellers owned a controlling interest. But the 
use of Winthrop is the most overt suggestion that the 
Rockefellers were themselves racist Nazis. . . ."

http://www.vheissu.info/art/art_eng_49_hollander.htm#chap_2

http://www.vheissu.info/art/art_eng_49_hollander.htm