Airship of Fools

[alice wellintown]

In Pynchon, the journey to knowledge, maturation of
the  protagonist, is part of the Parody of Menippen satire. Following
Twain, whose most famous narrator, Huck, doesn't learn a thing after
his adeventures with Jim, and Henry Adams who likewize, learns nothing
from his Education, Pynchon makes fools questers, of Oedipa Maas, a
parody of the Greek Tragic Quest for identity, for Man, for Waste. In
GR, Slothrop, like Dorothy in Oz, is both running from and to Home, is
both bait and
baited, the protagonist's obsession with V. or Tristero is
now a universal obsession with Slothrop and V-2.
Slothrop's picaresque adventures and romantic obsession with the Rocket can be
seen as combining Benny (the picaro) and Stencil (the
quester).

And ....



Since Jewry’s attitudes towards its own frailty were complex
and contradictory, the Schlemiel was sometimes berated for
his foolish weakness, and elsewhere exalted for his hard
inner strength. For the reformers who sought ways for
strengthening and improving Jewish life and laws, the
Schlemiel embodied those negative qualities of weakness that
had to be ridiculed to be overcome. Conversely, to the
degree that Jews looked upon their disabilities as external
afflictions, sustained through no fault of their own, the
used the Schlemiel as the model pf endurance, his innocence
a shield against corruption, his absolute defenselessness
the only gaurenteed defense against the brutalizing
potential of might.
     Ruth Wisse    “The Schlemiel as Modern Hero”

Switch the dialects, alter a few details, and most black
jokes can become Jewish Jokes or Irish Jokes with a minimum
of loss…When a Schlimazel’s bread-and butter accidentally
falls on the floor it always lands butter side down; with a
Schlemiel it’s much the same-except that he butters his
bread on both sides first.

    Sanford Pinsker    “The Schlemiel as Metaphor, Studies
in Yiddish and Jewish American Fiction”

Lears Fool ...sez



On Thu, Mar 8, 2012 at 1:41 AM, Michael Bailey
<michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com> wrote:
>  Bled Welder wrote:
>>
>> Any characters in Pynchon's work that can be said to represent the Madman,
>> the Fool, the Simpleton, Folly?
>>
>
> there's a strong case to be made for both Benny Profane and Slothrop
> wearing the fool's cap; Denis in IV has a small but juicy "fool" role
> as well...
>
> what is a fool then?  great Foucault quote, goes a long way toward
> explaining why the BP and Slothrop characters are so satisfying in the
> type of book they are in...