NP but MLK and MX: Serendipitous find re last post.

[Mark Kohut]

https://www.indy100.com/article/photo-of-martin-luther-king-and-malcom-x-is-an-important-reminder-of-what-the-world-has-lost-8284721

On Mon, Apr 2, 2018 at 6:18 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

> A--and, obvious follow-on re part of the Why?: MLK and Malcolm X embody
> that full resistance, later, to the overwhelming sin of slavery, so they
> stand invisibly with those non-satirizing slavery scenes
> in M & D. TRP finding NOTHING to joke about there.
>
> We know what happens to Malcolm's vision via P in GR.
>
> And, from anyone who knows more Ishmael Reed than I might (from too long
> ago), is Chap 28 as JT lays it out easily seen as indebted to Reed?
>
>
>
> On Mon, Apr 2, 2018 at 5:17 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I have been away from any copy of M & D and am now rereading this
>> section.
>>
>> Reflection on this interesting post, however, leads me to one short
>> answer to one question in it: P does this
>> because, as pointed out, America, the US, in the social aggregate, did
>> this re black stereotypes. (Still thinking re Gershom,
>> but, as with every read, I am reminded that I wish I had read Melville's*
>> Israel Potter* to see what I can see, if anything, and maybe I will)
>>
>> Yes, with slavery as the horror of M & D, the inherent vice, loosely used
>> here, of one "owning' another, I would think P's intention is to show
>> some ways America accommodated itself to its 'original sin'--as some
>> historians even call it. The reality can't be borne, as T.S.. Eliot is
>> always saying.
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Mar 29, 2018 at 9:25 PM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
>>
>>> M&D chapter 28  first installment
>>> In which George Washington and his happy negro smoke dope with Mason and
>>> Dixon . As told by Dick Gregory playing Sammy Davis Jr. playing George W’s
>>> man Gershom.
>>>
>>> Well something like that. Hard to peel away the layers of absurdity and
>>> historic make believe when it comes to George Washington ala Pynchon. P  is
>>> playing as  satirically fast and loose as he can get away with portraying
>>> the Father of our country, a man well known to have six dicks. I know from
>>> listening to Jerusalem( Alan Moore) that Washington’s family came from
>>> Northamptonshire. So between the 4 smokers we have north, south and middle
>>> England,  along with the unknown African homeland of Gershom. An Israelite
>>> in whom is no guile? Interesting choice of stereotype, direct from the holy
>>> scriptures.
>>>
>>> During the course of the day Pynchon’s George Washington goes from a
>>> harsh tactician analyzing the wars with Indians,  along with the politics
>>> of Ulster Scots and William Penn to spaced out  happy stoner enjoying the
>>> munchies with M&D and his all-purpose slave/historian/comedian/cook/butler/
>>> convert to judaism, Gershom,  and at the close of their time together  ends
>>> up  indulging paranoid (apparently this is one of those kind of Sativas)
>>> speculations on the dangers of the insidious Jesuits, chiefest of threats
>>> to human freedom.
>>>
>>> The conversation is not reassuring to M&D due to the heavy emphasis on
>>> the many sources of mortal danger in the western hills where they are
>>> ultimately headed.
>>>
>>> As a satirist and bent historian, what are Pynchon’s targets and goals
>>> here? And what particularly is he doing with Gershom? I would love to hear
>>> others thoughts.
>>>
>>> Historically several of Washington’s many slaves escaped when they had a
>>> chance, including the famous Hercules, his talented cook.  Apparently they
>>> were not so happy after all. Hercules would have been between 10 and 15
>>> years old when this chapter takes place  so not  historically realistic as
>>> model for Gershom. My wife is reading a book about Ona Judge’s escape from
>>> George Washington and her lifelong pursuit by the Washingtons. At the time
>>> M&D was published there were still chidren’s books on Washington showing
>>> happy slaves. I think P is mocking this whole portrayal of slavery which
>>> was still quite alive when he was writing M&D. Gershom strikes me as a an
>>> unlikely meld of Dick Gregory satirism with the eager to please Sammy Davis
>>> Jr.  the last of the rather sad minstrel show uncle Tom style black
>>> entertainers and a famous black convert to Judaism.  Thus P is marking out
>>> the most comfortable and accepted  then contemporary role of black people,
>>> though clearly not that of MLK or Malcolm X.  Why?
>>>   In some ways this is a  George Washington for a generation that
>>> inhaled. Who laughed at the sanctimonious shit dispensed by history
>>> teachers and knew that there is something majorly fucked up about freedom
>>> fighters with slaves. It is hard to take seriously and Pynchon doesn’t.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>>>
>>
>>
>