Backing and filling on Against the Day...and for Master of Petersburg plist readers

[Mark Kohut]

--- On Tue, 7/28/09, Carvill, John <john.carvill at sap.com> wrote:

> From: Carvill, John <john.carvill at sap.com>
> Subject: RE: Backing and filling on Against the Day...and for Master of Petersburg plist readers
> To: "Mark Kohut" <markekohut at yahoo.com>, "pynchon -l" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Date: Tuesday, July 28, 2009, 4:06 AM
> Norman Stone is a plonker! Plus the
> 'assassination' of Ferdinand was a pretty botched job, the
> initial attempt(s) failed quite farcically, the would-be
> assassin biting down on an expired cynaide pill which just
> made him throw up, then he jumped in the Miljaka river
> which, as anyone who's ever seen it kmnows, only comes up to
> about ankle level, so isn't really suitable... Princip was a
> minor member of a group of about half a dozen conspiritors,
> who managed to shoot Ferdinand some time after the main
> assasination attempt, almost on a whim, having come out of a
> café and stumbled across the royal car. The man was an
> idiot, which may be why Norman Stone feels close to him.
> 
> I alwys thought the story of the assassination was going to
> make for a great sequence in ATD, but was disappointed by
> the Sarajevo section. I guess P thought it would be too
> obvious - but who else would set a historical novel in that
> timefrema, and have Franz F as a cameo character, and set a
> whole section in the Balkans, but omit the assassination
> itself?
>  
> 
> 
> << I learned that Archduke Ferdinand, late of AtD,
> was assassinated by a 
> "romantic" who learned from the Russian Nihilist real-life
> group written of in D's "The Possessed" and Conrad's "Under
> Western Eyes" [and "The Master of Petersburg"].
> 
> When asked before his death, whether he regretted
> Assassinating Ferdinand
> and started a world war, said, "If I had not done it, The
> Germans would have found another excuse."...
> 
> The historian who quoted that, Norman Stone, basically
> agreed. >>
> 
> 
>       
>