ATDDTA (3): Control issues, 54-56

[Tore Rye Andersen]

Monte:

>In short, who's in charge here? Who decided that Randolph St. Cosmo should
>report to White City Investigations?

[...]

>I would like to put on the table (where it will remain, twitching and
>occasionally clawing the overbold) the question: who is being so frequently
>and ostentatiously not-identified here and hereafter?
>
>An initial pool of suspects might include God, Fate, History, the
>Trespassers, the author of the Chums books, and the author of AtD. For what
>it's worth, I find this one of the deeper of the book's many deep games --
>the hints are inflected almost as variously as the story itself.

Welcome at the helm, Monte. That issue of control is an interesting one, and 
I'd even go so far as to call it a central one - certainly not the first 
time it has reared its ugly head in a Pynchon novel.

So: "Who's in charge?" -- an important question, but I'm not sure there is 
an unequivocal answer to it. Pynchon is not above the odd Nabokovian game, 
but whereas Nabokov's literary games - like his chess problems - often had a 
clear solution, I think that the solution to many of Pynchon's games are 
deliberately out of reach.

FWIW, I'm not sure that the Chums' commanders are not-identified: I think 
they are 'They' - that blurry and sinister entity that also plays an 
important part in GR. 'They' are sort of an abstract embodiment of power and 
control, and 'They' can't really be pinned down to something too concrete. 
In GR they constantly flicker in and out of sight, and oscillate between the 
concrete and the abstract. At one instant, They are giant robed figures in 
the horizon - "watchmen of the world's edge" (GR, 215), and at another 
instant They are a couple of scheming homosexuals from the British upper 
class (cf. Sir Marcus and Clive Mossmoon, GR 615-16).

I think we find the same oscillation between the concrete and the abstract 
in AtD: At one point They are the Chums' faceless commanders, and at another 
point They are Scarsdale Vibe and his ilk. Pynchon shows us both the 
faceless and the named manifestations of Them, and by doing so he provides a 
clear-eyed discussion of different aspects of Control and Power:

When They remain faceless - in the guise of giant robed figures, or Fate, or 
History - it is all too easy to submit oneself to Their power, to the 
inevitability of Fate, etc. Pökler does that in GR: submits himself to 
Destiny and even yearns for it to come get him (while he lies on his back 
masturbating!) - until finally he quits the game. Mason and Dixon do it in 
M&D as well: They keep discussing who's controlling them and whether they 
should continue their task, but in the end they do just that: carry out 
their assignment. And the facelessness of the Chums' commanders in AtD is 
what allows the Chums to carry on their mission more or less unreflectively. 
And most of the characters in AtD submit themselves to History as well: They 
all see the future World War as inevitable, which relieves them of the 
responsibility to do anything about it (and so the War *does* become 
inevitable).
Many of Pynchon's characters may speculate who They could be, but I'm not 
really sure they want an answer to this question, because it is so much 
easier to submit oneself to an abstract principle of power than to someone 
with a face and a name.
There are those among Pynchon's characters who realize this (even though 
they don't necessarily act accordingly). In GR, some of the younger members 
of the Schwarzkommando are impatient with those who submit themselves to the 
abstract principle of Technology:

"All very well to talk about having a monster by the tail, but do you think 
we'd've had the Rocket if someone, some specific somebody with a name and a 
penis hadn't *wanted* to chuck a ton of Amatol 300 miles and blow up a block 
full of civilians? Go ahead, capitalize the T on technology, deify it if 
it'll make you feel less responsible - but in puts you in with the neutered, 
brother, in with the eunuchs keeping the harem of our stolen Earth for the 
numb and joyless hardons of human sultans, human elite with no right at all 
to be where they are--" (GR, 521)

And in Vineland, Sasha has a similar take on things:

"The injustices she had seen in the streets and fields, so many, too many 
times gone unanswered - she began to see them more directly, not as world 
history or anything too theoretical, but as humans, usually male, living 
here on the planet, often well within reach, committing these crimes, major 
and petty, one by one against other living humans. Maybe we all had to 
submit to History, she figured, maybe not - but refusing to take shit from 
some named and specified source - well, it might be a different story." (VL, 
80)

In AtD we both have characters - such as Webb - who refuse to take shit from 
some named and specified source, and characters such as the Chums who do 
take shit from some unnamed and unspecified source: Behind that unnamed and 
unspecified source there is of course a face, but that face is never shown 
in AtD, and this suits the Chums just fine, since it relieves them of the 
bother of questioning this Authority in any profound manner. The interesting 
thing of course it what happens when this Authority simply absconds towards 
the end of the novel and leaves the Chums to their own devices - but I think 
I'll save that discussion for a later post: This one has already gotten out 
of control....

_________________________________________________________________
Log på MSN Messenger direkte på nettet:  http://webmessenger.msn.com