ATDDTA (3): Control issues, 54-56

[kelber at mindspring.com]

Wow, that's a great collection of quotes.  Kudos!  Your distinction between the "faceless" They and the "named" They in Pynchon is really a central one.  Out here in the real world (as per the VL quote), it's especially important.  For example, scary as Global Warming is, I've found it hard to get as emotionally worked up over it as I do over the Iraq War.  The latter can actually be blamed on a specific cabal of individuals, with names and faces.  The former, even if you can blame the US for not signing the Kyoto Agreement, has a much larger, complicated and mostly faceless cast of characters.

Laura

-----Original Message-----
>From: Tore Rye Andersen <torerye at hotmail.com>

>
>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....

>