ATDDTA (3): Control issues, 54-56

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

Monte:

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

Tore:
. . . .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). . . . 



Me;
Of course, they are also the same particular "they" that's everywhere in 
Pynchon, but to a concentrated degree in GR, COL49 and AtD. I'm
sure that V.'s in there somewhere, just haven't got around to plowing 
through one again.The timeframe of Against the Day is a (an? the 
[into the "modern" era]?) historical nexus, just after the robber barons, 
right about the time the automobile entered the American landscape,
during the ascent of the "ruling cabal" that is revealed in a most coy 
manner in P's books, but "they" are most assuredly present in those books:


"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."


Tore: 
"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. . . . "

. . . .and so, we only see "them" in some blurry shadow state, but "they"
are the same "them" we known and loathed all these years. . . .


Edward Mendelsohn: 
"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

There's plenty of linkage of the Bushes with the Vibes in AtD,
thusly to the Morgans, Rothschilds, Rockefellers , fat cats 
vampirically existing off of Standard Oil money. . . .
and of course all of "them" are old east coast money, always
intimated in Pynchon's books, but rarely given full exposure.

Tore:
"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...."



I think Pynchon spends a little more time in AtD on those who refuse to 
take shit from "them", which goes a long way towards producing the more 
optimistic tone of Against the Day.