V-2 -Chapter 9 - Anti-Oedipus

[Robin Landseadel]

On Oct 28, 2010, at 10:36 AM, rich wrote:

> I wonder if we are treading on thin ice here when we extrapolate
> Pynchon's artistic license in shadowing the Herero genocide with the
> Nazi genocide of Jews, Roma.

I get the distinct impression that this chapter is the ultimately  
birthplace of Gravity's Rainbow, a novel where even more space is  
devoted to these Germanic/Central European [Think Belguim, the  
Netherlands] negative archetypes. I didn't put these types 'n'  
archetypes in the books, the author did.

> It almost implies an inherent
> predilection in the German character for mass extermination (or
> eliminationist in the current use of the word).

Like that bit of "Northmanship" in that sentient rock, that block  
sheared off from the great Icelandic gap of creation that cuts through  
the infected city in "Against the Day" --  is that what your talking  
about? Because I think that realm of technology and the realm of pure  
though, separate from the body -- that all goes into Pynchon's take on  
"Northmanship."

> What I mean to say is
> that such a shadowing is perfectly legitimate in a work of art

Both "V." and GR ooze with artifice . . .

> --it suggests but when we bring that from the novel into the real  
> world I
> think we may want to pause and think a bit because I for one do not
> believe that one can blankly connect von Trotha and Himmler for
> example, that Hitler was inevitable.

Don't take my word for it:

		As if it were a real affair, Lieutenant Weissmann
	cornered him in the billiard room. Mondaugen quivered
	and prepared to flee: but it proved to be something else
	entirely.

		"You're from Munich," Weissmann established.
	"Ever been around the Schwabing quarter?" On
	occasion. ''The Brennessel cabaret?" Never. "Ever
	heard ofD'Annunzio?" Then: Mussolini? Fiume?
	Italia irredenta? Fascisti? National Socialist German
	Workers' Party? Adolf Hitler? Kautsky's Independents?

	"So many capital letters," Mondaugen protested.

	"From Munich, and never heard of Hitler," said
	Weissmann, as if "Hitler" were the name of an
	avant-garde play. "What the hell's wrong with
	young people." Light from the green overhead
	lamp turned his spectacles to twin, tender
	leaves, giving him a gentle look.

	"I'm an engineer, you see. Politics isn't my line."

	"Someday we'll need you," Weissmann told him,
	"for something or other, I'm sure. Specialized and
	limited as you are, you fellows will be valuable.
	I didn't mean to get angry."

	"Politics is a kind of engineering, isn't it. With
	people as your raw material."

	"I don't know," Weissmann said . . .
	V., 256 HPMC

> As we all know American
> (Philippines), British (Kenya, The Boer War), Belgian (Congo), etc.
> colonial enterprises were just as horrific.

Pynchon gets around to those particular horrors later, in bigger and  
better books.

> The Germans surely did not
> have a monopoly on such behavior.
>
> maybe I'm just being picayune
>
> rich

Perhaps Pynchon is just being bombastic? After all, this is the  
author's first novel, give him a little time to absorb the subtleties  
of Colonialism, give him a bit more time in the libraries.

> On Thu, Oct 28, 2010 at 11:15 AM, Robin Landseadel
> <robinlandseadel at comcast.net> wrote:
>> I'm seeing Foppl being the
>> Abraham of this story, the "Father" of his tribe, the leader among  
>> those who
>> would make a living out of mass extermination. So Foppl's "Sarah"  
>> is the
>> Mother of this long line of victims, these pre-echos of Auschwitz  
>> and the
>> first explorers into the wilderness, these out of town try-outs for  
>> mass
>> exterminations to come. There is no doubt concerning the despotic  
>> nature of
>> Foppl in these scenes.