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

[Joseph Tracy]

What in standard English is a  " fictoon author of character(s)acting as detectives in a POSSIBLY of the EXISTENCE Of a bizarre and complex political situation..”?  And how is anyone supposed to read that?
> 
> 

> On Jul 28, 2024, at 4:10 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Big Question:  do you know how to read? 
> 
> If you are following clues laid out by a fictoon author of character(s)
> acting as detectives in a POSSIBLY of the EXISTENCE Of a bizarre and
> complex political situation…
> 
> 1. Do you have a strategy for “processing” the text presented by the author?
> 
> 2.  Do you think the author had a strategy for laying out the clues that
> you’re now following?
> 
> 
> On Sun, Jul 28, 2024 at 3:17 AM Michael Bailey <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> 
>> 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?
>> --
>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>> 
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l