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

[Mark Kohut]

Well, whatever Norman Stone is, TRP seems to share the expressed view of 
the Germans (as a Nation-State) re the History of the two world wars.
Examples citing Germany are legion in his books, but for the supposed war-mongering, any-excuse-necessary Germans at the time of Archduke Ferdinand, I remember this from V.:

"But you take a whole bunch of people flip at the same time and you've got a war".

I posted the above as I explore Pynchon's vision and I did not know the story, the fact of the (final) assassin, yet I am again astounded that in Pynchon's novel dealing with World Anarchism the assassin who started that massive death-dealing machine, some roots could be traced to the bloody anarchists of Nechaev's circle...

That P. did not deal with the assassination in AtD leads me to think about why?  As with other events---the most-bloody union-threatening American Civil War is one---he does not lift the "G-string of History" as I believe he calls it in V..........why?.....who knows but......

What TRP remains silent about, to allude to Wittgenstein, lives screaming in history, perhaps.



--- 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. >>
> 
> 
>       
> 
>