V-2 - Chapter 9 - Sarah's Story

[kelber at mindspring.com]

In giving this character the name Sarah, is Pynchon indulging in heavy-handed irony?  The European missionaries give her a name that promises her the life of a Princess, beloved by all.  Instead, she gets the shreds of the Sarah story - being claimed by Pharaoh Foppl, who suffers a lot less than the real Pharaoh for attempting to claim her for his own, then fought over and (unlike the Biblical Sarah) brutalized and driven to suicide.  Outside of this irony of false promises offered by wolves in sheep's clothing, not sure how Biblical this sequence is meant to be.  Sarah was Lot's sister, and the scenario is straight out of Sodom.  But again, these Biblical comparisons don't add much to the horror of Sarah's story.  The missionaries savage the indigenous culture, while the colonialist soldiers rape, torture and kill.  A crummy choice for those who are offered religious conversion over death. Conversion certainly didn't save this Herero Sarah.

Laura

-----Original Message-----
>From: Robin Landseadel <robinlandseadel at comcast.net>
>Sent: Oct 26, 2010 10:16 AM
>To: pynchon-l at waste.org
>Subject: V-2 - Chapter 9 - Sarah's Story
>
>	Oh God said to Abraham, “Kill me a son”
>	Abe says, “Man, you must be puttin’ me on”
>	God say, “No.” Abe say, “What?”
>	God say, “You can do what you want Abe, but
>	The next time you see me comin’ you better run”
>	Well Abe says, “Where do you want this killin’ done?”
>	God says, “Out on Highway 61”
>
>This calamity will unfold slowly. One suspects there is an older tale  
>here, a myth that cannot die . . .
>
>Sarah or Sara  is an old Hebrew name, the wife and half-sister of  
>Abraham, the mother of Isaac. She's the sister of Lot, so she already  
>had some acquaintance with pain and woe. According to Rabbinic texts,  
>she was the only Woman who to whom G-d would speak directly -- all  
>other seeresses spoke to G-d's representatives, the Angels, those  
>creatures that we get to tickle if we're really, really lucky. G-d  
>doesn't really want to talk with us anyway lately, but it's nobody's  
>fault but his own, so he just sits there and mopes.  Sarah's beauty  
>had a "special light" that her captors in Egypt could not help but be  
>witness to. William Pynchon's "The Meritorious Price of Our  
>Redemption" address the issue of obedience to G-d as the Christ's  
>highest virtue, Sarah's story/myth is tied to this issue of "The  
>Meritorious Price of Our Redemption" as well:
>
>	Legends connect Sarah's death with the attempted sacrifice
>	of Isaac, there being two versions of the story. According to
>	one, Samael came to her and said: "Your old husband
>	seized the boy and sacrificed him. The boy wailed and
>	wept; but he could not escape from his father." Sarah began
>	to cry bitterly, and ultimately died of her grief. According to
>	the other legend, Satan, disguised as an old man, came to
>	Sarah and told her that Isaac had been sacrificed. She,
>	believing it to be true, cried bitterly, but soon comforted
>	herself with the thought that the sacrifice had been offered
>	at the command of God. She started from Beer-sheba to
>	Hebron, asking everyone she met if he knew in which
>	direction Abraham had gone. Then Satan came again in
>	human shape and told her that it was not true that Isaac had
>	been sacrificed, but that he was living and would soon
>	return with his father. Sarah, on hearing this, died of joy at
>	Hebron. Abraham and Isaac returned to their home at Beer-
>	sheba, and, not finding Sarah there, went to Hebron, where
>	they discovered her dead. During Sarah's lifetime her house 	
>	was always hospitably open, the dough was miraculously
>	increased, a light burned from Saturday evening to
>	Saturday evening, and a pillar of cloud rested upon the
>	entrance to her tent. . .
>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah
>
>But these are just myths, nothing like facts and figures to blow the  
>cobwebs off of old nightmares.
>
>	"Bravo for '04 again;
>	I'm a Deutschesudwestafrikaner in love ... "
>
>The scene painted might as well be Highway 61:
>
>	Just as its own loose sand was licked away by the cold
>	tongue of a current from the Antarctic south, that coast
>	began to devour time the moment you arrived. It offered life
>	nothing: its soil was arid; salt-bearing winds, chilled by the
>	great Benguela, swept in off the sea to blight anything that
>	tried to grow. There was constant battle between the fog,
>	which wanted to freeze your marrow, and the sun; which,
>	once having burned off the fog, sought you. Over
>	Swakopmund the sun often seemed to fill the entire sky, so
>	diffracted was it by the sea fog. A luminous gray tending to
>	yellow, that hurt the eyes. You learned soon enough to wear
>	tinted glasses for the sky. If you stayed long enough you
>	came to feel it was almost an affront for humans to be living
>	there at all. The sky was too large, the coastal settlements
>	under it too mean. The harbor at Swakopmund was slowly,
>	continuously filling with sand, men were felled mysteriously
>	by the afternoon's sun, horses went mad and were lost in
>	the tenacious ooze down along the beaches. It was a brute
>	coast, and survival for white and black less a matter of 	
>	choice than anywhere else in the Territory.
>
>	V., 282/283 HPMC
>
>	Cinderella, she seems so easy
>	“It takes one to know one,” she smiles
>	And puts her hands in her back pockets
>	Bette Davis style
>	And in comes Romeo, he’s moaning
>	“You Belong to Me I Believe”
>	And someone says, “You’re in the wrong place my friend
>	You better leave”
>	And the only sound that’s left
>	After the ambulances go
>	Is Cinderella sweeping up
>	On Desolation Row
>
>Only difference is that the princess is in the ambulance, or should  
>have been, and it's Romeo who's sweeping up on desolation row. No  
>matter, nobody really "belongs" in this landscape where the sky is too  
>large, horses go mad, a place where it was almost an affront for  
>humans to be living there at all.
>
>Before we go any further; as your humble servant, I ask of all of you  
>still reading to ponder on the figure of Sarah -- the mythic figure --  
>and contemplate how the story of Sarah in the Bible reflects on the  
>story of Sarah in "V." Those of you who have already made missives on  
>the subject in the past might seek out your earlier offerings, allow  
>them to be re-pixilated for the eyeballs and other organs of our sick  
>crew.
>
>I thank you in advance
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------
>
>	Gravity’s Rainbow – a small contribution
>	to a certain degree, since there are over
>	three and a half billion people in the world
>	today. 218 million of them live in the
>	United States which is a very, very small
>	amount compared to those that are dying
>	elsewhere…