Repost: "The Big One"

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

     David Payne:
     Hold on -- can you expound on what you mean by "[I] would 
     point to Weissmann's tarot as the narrator's true feelings on 
     the subject"?

I first read Gravity's Rainbow a little over 25 years ago while
living on the Novato site of the California Renaissance Faire.
Tarot card readers have long been in abundance at the 
Renaissance Faires, but until reading Weissman's Tarot
card reading in Gravity's Rainbow, I did not take the Tarot 
seriously. It should be noted that Pynchon's reading of the 
cards is a Kabbalistic reading. I could cite chapter and verse, 
but anyone trying to understand the passage will need to
read all of it in context.  Steven C. Weisenburger's comments 
in "A Gravity's Rainbow Companion" are particularly helpful.
Weissman's tarot starts on page 746 of the Viking edition, 
871 of the mass-market Bantam edition and 761 of the later 
Penguin Classics edition.

I got both Malign's and David Morris' thoughts in my head 
when speaking about the narrator's true feelings Please
to note that I did not say the author's feelings, but the 
narrator's—can't assume they're identical, can we?
David's thoughts are that I'm "projecting a world" and that
Magick and the occult are my bailiwicks, not the author's.
But this passage in particular demonstrates a knowledge
of the tarot and a sophistication of explication rarely found
in books on the subject. Pynchon's reading is suffused with
an awareness of the subtler meanings of the cards. Pynchon
knows more about the cards, ceremonial magic and kabbahlla
then I ever will. And I'm into it, in no small part because of the 
awareness and sophistication of this demonstration of a tarot 
card reading. On top of that, other kabbalistic interpretations
are posted in many places in Gravity's Rainbow and they all 
seem to climax in this sequence.

Malign's point:

"There's guilt to go around, but Royal Dutch Shell is not the third reich. . . ."

inverts Pynchon's meaning. The author, demonstrates [in this card 
reading] that this Nazi will pretty much rule via the "New World Order."
Weissman will find his way to the offices of rulers in the new world.

http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en-commons/thumb/f/f5/250px-Wernher_von_Braun(2).jpg

          "If you're wondering where he's gone, look among the successful 
          academics. the Presidential advisers, the token intellectuals who 
          sit on boards of directors. He is almost surely there. Look high, 
          not low.
               His future card, the card of what will come, is The World."
          GR, P764/V749/B874

As far as Pynchon's concerned, Shell's just as much a Nazi as the rest of 'em.