CoL49 group reading ch6 part 1 (6) - with help from Albert Rolls on sources

[Michael Bailey]

https://www.berfrois.com/2020/03/albert-rolls-pynchon-in-the-low-countries/


“Blobb” inquired around about the Trystero organization, running into
zipped mouths nearly every way he turned. But he was able to collect a few
fragments. So, in the days following, was Oedipa. From obscure philatelic
journals furnished her by Genghis Cohen, an ambiguous footnote in Motley’s
Rise of the Dutch Republic, an 80-year-old pamphlet on the roots of modern
anarchism, a book of sermons by Blobb’s brother Augustine also among
Bortz’s Wharfingeriana, along with Blobb’s original clues, Oedipa was able
to fit together this account of how the organization began: “

- Blobb and his brother are obviously fictional.
There’s some grist for speculation in the names “Diocletian” - Roman
emperor from 284 to 305 who even has a persecution of Christians named
after him - and “Augustine” which strongly connotes the Bishop of Hippo
from 395 to 430, an era in which Christianity rose in ascendancy while the
Roman Empire was disintegrating. As wealthy Britons, Blobb père et mère may
have wanted to render unto both God and Caesar.

- “Obscure philatelic journals furnished by Genghis Cohen” not evidently
meant to be traceable
(but indicative of yet more friendly contact with Cohen)

-  “an ambiguous footnote in Motley’s _Rise of the Dutch Republic”
According to Albert Rolls, Pynchon’s account departs from the main thrust
of that extant book


- “An 80-year-old pamphlet on the roots of anarchism” would put its
publication at 1884. One could speculate but nothing stands out in my
cursory search.


Among the many points in Albert Rolls’s fine article,
“The unrecognized source for Pynchon’s construction of that historical
context seems to be Adrien de Meeüs’s *Histoire Belgique *(1928), which
was published in an English translation as the *History of the Belgians* in
1962. Knowing Meeüs’s historical account not only helps explain some of
the choices, as well as errors, Pynchon made but also helps one better
characterize the Tristero’s place in history.”


- trying to recap Oedipa’s account more succinctly than the text:

1577 - “In late December, Orange, de facto master of the Low Countries,
entered Brussels in triumph, having been invited there by a Committee of
Eighteen. This was a junta of Calvinist fanatics….”

Rolls points out that Motley correctly placed the event in September 1577,
but Pynchon used Meeüs’s incorrect date of December.

Also, Motley states that the Committee of Eighteen included many Catholics,
and “attributes Brussel’s invitation to Orange to the Estates General
(3:171) rather than the Committee of Eighteen,”


- for my purposes:

The King of Spain, Phillip II, was trying to make the Low Countries more
subservient
He was an actual dude.

William of Orange (and his armed forces), invited by influential
Brusselaars, came to Brussels to lead the resistance

For Oedipa’s & Pynchon’s purposes, this was a Calvinist and localized
resistance to a Catholic and ultramontane monarch

William of Orange was an actual dude.

The Committee of Eighteen* displaced many functions of the Estates
General*, disrupting the status quo by appointing new people to hold
important positions

* actual dudes

Jan Hinckart, Lord of Ohain, became postmaster, & displaced “Leonard I,
Baron of Taxis, Gentleman of the Emperor’s Privy Chamber and Baron of
Buysinghen, the hereditary Grand Master of the Post for the Low Countries,
and executor of the Thurn and Taxis monopoly.”

Jan Hinckart was an actual dude.
Ohain is a Belgian town and district.


“At this point the founding figure enters the scene:
Hernando Joaquín de Tristero y Calavera, perhaps a madman, perhaps an
honest rebel, according to some only a con artist.”

Tristero does not seem to be an actual dude.
No references online except CoL49 ones.

- Tristero claims to have been disinherited by Hinckart, whose cousin he
claims to be
- he claims to hail from the “Spanish and legitimate branch of the family”
- his forces harry and harass the Hinckart post from 1577 to 1585

- so Hinckart represents the Calvinist rebels
- while Tristero represents a revanchist Catholic and monarchist faction
- however, his fealty to Phillip II is nominal, or nil, or at least not
mentioned



- Alexander Farnese in 1585 took back control of the Low Countries and
reinstated Leonard
- Farnese was an actual dude, Duke of Parma in fact
- but here he was acting in his capacity as a general of the Spanish Army
- which of course answered to Phillip II
- who Wikipedia says was a Habsburg


- so that’s how Rudolph II, Holy Roman Emperor, got involved
- miffed by all the Protestantism in “the Bohemian branch of [Leonard’s]
family” Rudolph withdrew support of the postal monopoly
- hard times for Thurn & Taxis



- in essence, we are inserting into all this historical data an invented
character


Trending trends:
- The Roman Catholic Church, not content with the moral high ground, sought
influence thru armed might, investing “Holiness” in a temporal power

- other entities went contrariwise, with temporal powers such as Henry VIII
establishing by armed might a Church of their jurisdiction in order to
claim a state-sanctioned moral high ground



- meanwhile, Tristero, apparently a charismatic leader and strategist,
foments rebellion, seeks and finds recruits, and envisions a larger network

- rather than challenge all facets of the current power structures in the
world, he confines his efforts to the postal sector

- this is similar to later rebellions taking over radio and TV stations,
but much slower

- he doesn’t seem to link up with any kind of Catholic/monarchist network

- but seeks sovereignty over “the communications sector”

- “He began a sub rosa campaign of obstruction, terror and depredation
along the Thurn and Taxis mail routes.”

- this would seem to detach his claims from his original Holy Roman Empire
affiliation


What to make of all this?
- harkening back to Diocletian & Augustine, where the names of the brothers
refer back thru the centuries to a time when there was a clear distinction
between Empire and Church, and their parents choice of names as recognizing
both trends?

are we supposed to see a similar distinction between William of Orange and
Rudolph II, Catholicism and Calvinism, local leadership vs transnational
hegemony?

Where does Tristero fit?
His presence is disruptive.
His “…iconography [,] the muted post horn and a dead badger with its four
feet in the air…” is catchy enough to remain viral for centuries.
His program is personal, reactive -
He doesn’t really fit in anywhere.

Is Pynchon suggesting that a feeling of being cheated is the basis of
Tristero - and that this feeling is prevalent enough to result in a lot of
movements that never come to much in the grand scheme, but cause a lot of
weirdness all over the place, throwing off enough discontent that it has
never been extinguished?

Oedipa herself is discontented. Is she so interested in the Tristero as a
Platonic ideal of her own discontent?