On V. the sign.

[Mark Thibodeau]

Interesting take that I will carry forward in ALL my reading. Thanks
for this insight.

Mark / Jerky

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On Fri, Dec 14, 2018 at 4:01 AM matthew cissell <mccissell at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hello Joseph,
>
> I don't think there is any way to confirm whether TP came across
> Klemperer's LTI. However, one can check to see if there was a copy of the
> German text at the libraries at that time.
>
> 20 years ago in Germany I was talking to some people about Thomas Mann's
> Doctor Faustus and I mentioned how impressed I was with his erudition,
> specifically the way he made use of his knowledge of Nietzsche. One of the
> listeners responded that Mann was very good at making use of what appeared
> to be deep learning; her point was that like many Mann had been drawn to
> the flame of Nietzsche's growing reputation but he was not what we would
> call a Neitzsche scholar.
>      After that I came to see that something similar was at work in regard
> to Joyce's use of Vico (Joyce had read Vico but was no Vico scholar in the
> true sense of the word).
>
> I have come to think that that same phenomenon is present in Pynchon's work
> to some degree. Yes, we know he has lines and references to Rilke and
> Wittgenstein, but that doesn't mean he read deeply, meaning TP is no
> specialist on that Bohemian poet or the austrian philosopher.
>
> So might he have come across the text and browsing through it found the
> part about V? Yes, but speculation of that sort doesn't hold much water in
> academia. It just shows how that sign and Symbol is so Protean that readers
> will find any number of signifieds to attach to the mighty letter.
>
> It would be great to be able to run these things past TP, he might get a
> real chuckle.
>
> ciao
> mc
>
>
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> On Thu, Dec 13, 2018 at 11:25 PM Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
>
> > Wow. We know he was aware of German documents for V and GR and that he had
> > read Wittgenstein and Rilke. But is it known whether he read these from
> > German texts?
> > > On Dec 11, 2018, at 4:54 AM, matthew cissell <mccissell at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > >
> > > Howdy All,
> > >
> > > Not long ago and by complete accident I came across "The Language of the
> > > Third Reich (LTI)" by Victor Klemperer, a jewish philologist who worked
> > in
> > > Dresden and documented the linguistic shift that occurred during the
> > > dictatorship.
> > >
> > > In a section called "From the Great Movement Forward" Klemperer writes of
> > > the LTI (Lingua Tertii Imperii) that "Its entire vocabulary is dominated
> > by
> > > the will to movement and action." (p. 210) At the end of the chapter he
> > > writes: "And finally, ossified into a scientific formula and tirned into
> > a
> > > spell, there was the 'new weapon', the magic letter that could always be
> > > heightened. (...)
> > >   The final paragraph of the chapter starts: "The magic letter takes a
> > > strange revenge: V was originally the secret code used by the illlegal
> > > freedom fighteres in the occupied Netherlands to identify themselves, V
> > > stood for *Vrijheid*, freedom. (...) And then, in the final phases of the
> > > war, V became the abbreviation for *Vergeltung* [vengence], the emblem of
> > > the new weapon whic h would avenge and bring to an end alld the suffering
> > > inflicted on Germany.
> > >
> > > Publication information that I have found indicates German publication in
> > > 1947 but other info states 1957. However, as far as I can tell the
> > English
> > > translation only became available in 2000. Would TP have had access toa
> > > German edition in California as he planned GR? Hard to see and without
> > > library records there is no way to confirm it.
> > >
> > > That said the LTI text should be included in some essay on possible
> > > references for V as a mulitfaceted and polysemic signifier leaping from
> > > signified to signified.
> > >
> > > peace
> > > mc otis
> > >
> > > <
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> > >
> > > On Wed, Dec 5, 2018 at 2:06 PM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > >> https://twitter.com/PeterSokolowski/status/1068258206957346817
> > >> --
> > >> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> > >>
> > > --
> > > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> >
> > --
> > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> >
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l