AtDTDA: 19 C.o.C. P.O.V. 519/ 547 The Great Game

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

So now we are mired in a rather disquieting set of dislocations in the center of 
a rather long and confusing book, perhaps the most absurd section of the 
novel—a jumble of Gordian knots assembled in such a way as to confuse and 
conceal as much as possible. Once onboard the Stupendica/Emperor Maximilian 
local confusion reaches a peak. We were on a Luxury Liner, now we are on a 
battleship. We find ourselves on-board the Emperor Maximilian, which just a page 
ago was the Stupendica but has sheared off into both the Stupendica and the 
Emperor Maximilian. So this great ocean liner has bilocated, tearing up local 
standards for consensus reality and achiving an extraordinarily high standard of 
fictitiousness. Dally, on-board the Stupendica, deports at Trieste, setting off 
major alarms in major CoL49 paranoids, such as myself. Kit leaves the Emperor 
Maximilian on the spot of the Moroccan coast that Germany wishes to colonize.  
The "master narrative" bi-locates and veers off-course. The expectations of 
"historical" fiction are blown off as the narrative lines become dis/bi-located—
literary placards like "this scene represents October of 1913" are remarkably 
absent in this novel, no, we get a bit of everything here from all sorts of 
different chronological time periods between 1893—1920ish. If we'd split the 
difference, the center of Against the Day ought to be 1905 or so. . . .

             First Moroccan Crisis
             From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

             The First Moroccan Crisis (also known as the Tangier Crisis) 
             refers to the international crisis over the colonial status of 
             Morocco between March 1905 and May 1906.

             The First Moroccan crisis grew out of the imperial rivalries of 
             the great powers, in this case, between Germany on one side 
             and France, with English support, on the other. . . .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Moroccan_Crisis

. . . . at the same time, the scene of the transformation/subdivision of 
Stupendica into Maximillian [. . . ."it's the old Liner-to Battleship 
Effect". . . .] is really about the great naval battles of WW I. 

Naval endevour has always been present in one form or another in Pynchon's 
books, but right from the get-go "Against the Day" is all about travel, 
journeys---traversing---with a notable naval aspect to all this intercontinental 
motion. The opening lines of the novel---"Now single up all lines" [Walt Disney 
cutesy animal voice: "You can call me Ishmael if you want to. . . . "] prepare 
us for wide ranging journeys to follow. Simply by placing O.I.C. Bodine ["oh, I 
see"] right in the center of these passages underscores the importance of this 
sequence. Engineering, and experience in the Navy gives Pynchon a 
Chum's—eye view of World War I where OBA points a cursor arrow in a 
powerpoint presentation of a convocation of naval vessels assembling near 
Morocco in one of the defining battles of the war—one of those forks in the 
road, so to speak. . . .

. . . .also ,and at the same time, "The Great Game" signifies British Colonial 
empire during WW I:

          One cannot underestimate the Machiavellian nature of British 
          dealings with its ‘allies’ as well as its enemies, dealings echoed 
          a century later by the US. Take for example, the way the Brits 
          manipulated France and grabbed Egypt, confronting each other 
          in the unlikely location of Fashoda on the Nile, a mosquito-
          infested place with virtually no significance except for its location 
          roughly midway between Egypt and the Indian Ocean. France 
          had a plan to unify Saharan Africa from the West to the East 
          and again, it collided head-on with British interests and as Engdahl 
          puts it “Britain was stealing Egypt from under the eyes of France” 
          first by feigning to ‘protect’ French interests in Egypt and second
           by reneging on yet another ‘agreement’.

          By the time war broke out in 1914 not only was oil of obvious 
          strategic significance, it also lubricated the relationship between 
          Britain and the US, largely because Britain was virtually bankrupt 
          and this is where the story gets really interesting for its here, at 
          the intersection of war and US and British capital that Engdahl 
          unpacks the forces that were to determine the course of the rest 
          of the 20th century.   

http://www.williambowles.info/ini/ini-0295.html

Naturally, the "revolutionary communist party, U.S.A." would be one of the 
few sources to give the 'straight poop' on 'the great game:

          In 1889 Lord Curzon, the British Viceroy of India, wrote that Iran 
          and its neighbors were “the pieces on a chessboard upon which 
          is being played out a game for the domination of the world,” and 
          where “the future of Great Britain…will be decided not in Europe” 
          (Amin Saikal, The Rise and Fall of the Shah, p. 13).

          For over 150 years, with the global spread of capitalism and the rise 
          of imperialism, Iran and the Middle East have been the target of a 
          handful of Western powers who have wanted to gain control of 
          the region and its resources, while preventing their rivals from 
          doing likewise. . . .

          , , , ,Anglo-Persian began pumping oil in 1908, making Iran the first 
          country in the Middle East where oil was commercially exploited on 
          an industrial scale, but it was World War 1 that established oil’s 
          centrality to empire in the modern age. At the time, navies were the 
          prime instruments of global reach and power; oil-fueled ships were 
          faster and ranged farther than the older coal-fired models. In 1912 
          Britain’s First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill converted the 
          British fleet to oil, making oil vital to British naval supremacy and 
          global hegemony. After the defeat of Germany in World War 1, 
          Britain’s Lord Curzon declared that the Allies had “floated to victory 
          upon a wave of oil.”  (Everest, p. 31). . . .

I don't know if this bit of knowledge will have any impact later on, but please 
note that the Stupendica is a coal-fired steamer.

          . . . .During World War 1, Iran was again a battleground of rival 
          imperialist powers. It had declared neutrality in the war, but 
          British forces quickly invaded southern Iran to guard Britain’s oil 
          lifeline and there was heavy fighting in Iran.

          The Western powers—the British and French in particular—
          claimed they were fighting World War 1 to free the Middle East 
          from the yoke of feudal, authoritarian Ottoman rule. In fact, they 
          were fighting to determine which European power would control 
          the Middle East—for its strategic location and its vast oil potential. . . .

http://revcom.us/a/089/iran-en.html

. . . .if I were to look for connections between Gravity's Rainbow and 
Against the Day, I'd be looking for oil. . . .

. . . .there are others of course, but with the Rockefellers and I.G. Farben in
one corner and the "Walkers", Vibes and Standard Oil of New Jersey on the 
other, I'd say there's a direct line of continuity.