Rainbow-Files: "23rd card of the Zone's trumps major...." (p. 707)

[Kai Frederik Lorentzen]

In contrary to his more traditional take on it in AtD, Pynchon presents 
the Tarot in "Gravity's Rainbow" with an astonishing expansion:

"Well, Under The Sign Of The Great Suckling. Swaying, full-color picture 
of a loathsomely fat drooling infant. In one puddinglike fist the Gross 
Suckling clutching a dripping hamhock (sorry pigs, nothing personal!), 
with the other he reaches out for a human Mother's Nipple that emerges 
out into the picture from the left-hand side, his gaze arrested by the 
approaching tit, his mouth open---a gleeful look, teeth pointed and 
itching, a glaze of FOODmunchmunchyesgobblemmm over his eyes. Der Grob 
Säugling, 23rd card of the Zone's trumps major...."

Now, perhaps the idea --- think Jesus-and-Mary-chain --- is rooted in 
Pynchon's catholic childhood and adolescence. There is no 23rd Tarot 
trump card, however. Or maybe there is, but not in the traditional or 
classical modern decks. Certainly not in the Rider/Waite, painted by 
Pamela Colman Smith, --- the one Pynchon primarily refers to in 
"Gravity's Rainbow". A twenty-third trump would also bring (not only 
theoretical) problems for Golden Dawn inspired mystics --- and Waite 
was, just like Crowley (and also Yeats!), a member ---, because there 
are only 22 paths on the Tree of Life to dance upon. So what is this 
about? "Der Grob Säugling" (actually it would have to be "grobe") is the 
gross (or rude or coarse) suckling and we're already in part 4 named The 
Counterforce. The Gross Suckling is actually an emblem for the 
shortcomings of the Counterforce. And as offturning this may sound: With 
this diagnosis Pynchon is swimming inside the mainstream of his time. 
During the 1970s it was a common thesis in social psychology that the 
failing of the, well, revolt of the 1960s can be blamed on a major shift 
in the minds and characters of Western people after WW II, --- from more 
authoritarian towards more narcisstic patterns. (A German example is the 
debate around Thomas Ziehe's study "Pubertät und Narzißmus" from 1975.) 
This, or so the thesis says, makes it difficult to organize any 
effective political resistance. The Great Suckling is not interested in 
starting a Revolution. The Great Suckling wants to /consume/ ... Now, 
when you look around (or - for that matter - into the mirror), that 
diagnosis is certainly not without first sight evidence. Yet it 
nevertheless puts too much weight on the individual, forgetting about 
the deadly Vectors of Late-late-late-Modernity. From a point of view 
focusing rather on structures than individuals, that thesis about a 
major shift from the authoritarian towards the narcisstic nature of the 
Western mind and character is very questionable. Shall say: In case the 
generation born around 1893 had met a similar level of capitalist 
production in the absence of World-Wars, Genocides and overall 
socio-economic disaster, their characters and minds would probably not 
have been too different from ours. And about 20 till 25% of the 
population in every Western country --- the numbers are my guess --- do 
constantly hold authoritarian views, which perhaps would make them 
better fighters for a revolution, but also implies things like racism, 
homophobia etc. This will likely never change. Anyway, I guess lots of 
people agreed with Pynchon in 1973.
The passage - Steven Weisenburger hints at this  - must be read 
analogously to that on page 302 where we hear of "a constellation 
waiting to have a 13th sign of the Zodiac named for it ...". In both 
cases Pynchon does overstretch a (more or less) traditional symbolic 
world to indicate the rise of Control (and air-terror) to levels of 
global functionality --


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