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

Mon Jul 29 05:03:48 UTC 2024

Does “ POSSIBILITY “ typo correction help?
Probably not

On Mon, Jul 29, 2024 at 12:44 AM Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:

> 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
>
>
>
>