GR translation: living its fantasy

[Michael Bailey]

I didn’t know what G-5 was - had to check the Pynchon wiki

*G-5*
125; Weisenburger quoting A.M. Taylor: "that section of the Army set up to
take over local government in lands occupied by invasion forces. Other
sections are G-1 personnel, G-2 Intelligence, G-3 Training and Plans, G-4
Supply and Evacuation."; 290; 644;



Hmm… -  narrator musing about how the G-5 administration began as
contra-factual fantasies in the form of plans - people invested their time,
efforts, and lives to those specifications - yet, reality will demonstrate
to Slothrop that the inhabitants are and always will be governed to a
greater degree by physical constraints such as need, weather, personal
loyalties, not to mention random factors - so to assert that G-5 is the
only government is a fantasy. Yet, as armed forces, they are sworn to
follow the chain of command, acting as if they are the only government, and
overcome any overt resistance?

Something like that, maybe.



On Fri, Dec 20, 2024 at 11:01 PM Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
wrote:

> V290.36-291.3   “It’s an arrangement,” she tells him. “It’s so unorganized
> out here. There have to be arrangements. You’ll find out.” Indeed he
> will—he’ll find thousands of arrangements, for warmth, love, food, simple
> movement along roads, tracks and canals. Even G-5, living its fantasy of
> being the only government in Germany now, is just the arrangement for being
> victorious, is all. No more or less real than all these others so private,
> silent, and lost to History.
>
> By saying G-5 is living its fantasy of being the only government in
> Germany, does it mean that its fantasy has come true, or is it still just
> an illusion?
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>