Analysis of Gravity's Rainbow, Part 3 - Chapter 11.3: Pökler at Zwölfkinder, Air Strike at Peenemünde, Pökler to Nordhausen, Blizna, Ilse and Gottfried, the Schwarzgerät Project, Pökler Enters Dora
you're saying here that Pölker didn't have sex with Ilse, that it was a fantasy? That's not how I read this passage at all -- I definitely thought they f*cked and that's such a poignant and painful situation Pynchon sets up with Ilse -- that Weismann is controlling him by placing him in this officially incestial sexual dependency that even if Weismann was sending different girls each year, Pölker at least had to keep up the pretense that she was his daughter so he could get his annual sex vacation, a situation Weismann could turn into blackmail if needed. I'm rereading the beginning of this section now and also rereading your post, and I think my darker, more perverted reading is true and you're too good-hearted and innocent yourself to see it, as a high school teacher should be. We definitely have a Humbert Humbert here.
"[William] Blake’s Songs share much in common with Pynchon’s big novel—both argue for the preterite, pointing out the ways in which industrial technologies exploit the most vulnerable among us; both are wildly, acidly vivid; both employ metaphors of fall and ascent; both foreground the utterly real humanity of their subjects."
"a child city counsel of twelve" -- from Pynchon Wiki https://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_397-433: he name evokes Jacob's twelve sons (and the daughter who is not one of the official twelve). This pattern is self-consciously repeated in the Grimms' tale "The Twelve Brothers", where the boys are to die if their mother gives birth to a girl.
The camp, which is also a quasi-town, may be modelled after Theresienstadt, the Jewish town/Lager set up by the Nazis in what is now the Czech Republic. This is suggested by themes like transit, phoney children's paradise, as well as the large orchestra, or the number 60,000 (the number of those who "passed through" Zwölfkinder as well the population of Theresienstadt at its peak). It also recalls another totalitarian institution, that of the communist "children's towns" (large, town-like, somewhat militarized holiday camps for Young Pioneers), whose prototype was Artek in the Soviet Union. (Deutsches Jungvolk also had its summer camps.)"
For me this was a big part of the pathos of Pölker's character; both a source and embodiment of his self-loathing which is also a result of working on a rocket project intended for death instead of space travel, and at the same time he can't keep his hands off the girl who might still be his daughter -- he's kind of a pitiful despicable character in my reading
Ok so yeah, my reading is that it's fantasy, or even an intrusive thought. Though I think it's intentionally left somewhat ambiguous, so to me it could be read either way.
Basically the start where she says "Papi, may I sleep next to you tonight?" (420) leads into the next paragraph where I believe his fantasy was: the hitting of her and the incest. But then the paragraph after is what makes me believe it's 'fantasy.' It starts with, "No. What Pökler did was choose to believe she wanted comfort that night, wanted not to be alone" (421). The 'No' to me signifies a rebuttal of the 'fantasy,' as in 'no, but that's not what I did; instead I set aside the belief that she wanted to fuck me and decided she just wanted comfort.'
Again though, I think it's meant to be ambiguous. I fully believe he would have done it more explicitly if she made her intentions more clear. And yeah, he is a pitiful and dispicable character for sure. Pitiable to some extent, but despicable nonetheless.
Interesting; I can see how there is room for ambiguity here although I didn't notice it before; thanks for pointing it out and I see what you mean. But it's part of a pattern of the book's treatment of sex generally, that it's written the most sexy when it's incest or pedophelia, and then other times it's gross & revolting -- I think P. was challenging the reader to react to these moments where he foregrounds the relationships between the men and the young girls. I'm thinking of course of Bianca aboard the Anubis. I don't know quite what Pynchon wants to achieve with this, but part of me wonders if he's retained the sexual predilections of his elite class even as he exposes some of their politics...I think of other writers of his generation like Alan Ginsberg who were quite open about advocating pedophelia, I don't think Pynchon's going that far, but I also, noticed he makes a point of sexualizing young girls while making sex between consenting adults gross and violent. I think you might be giving into the temptation to choose an interpretation that makes you most comfortable as the reader.
"He chose to believe she wanted comfort that night, wanted not to be alone" --> sounds very much to me like justification not a denial. He chose to believe, in other words, that it was fully consensual, that it was not a rape because she wanted it, which obviously there are lots of ways she could have been coerced, pre-coerced/pimped out by Weismann.
"...and after hours of amazing incest they dressed in silence, and crept out into the leading edge of faintest flesh dawn, everything they would ever need packed inside her flowered bag, past sleeping children doomed to the end of summer, past monitors and railway guards, down at last to the water and the fishing boats, to a fatherly old sea-dog in a braided captains hat" -- this feels too real to me, a part of the actual narrative, and not like a fantasy -- this actually moves the characters through real space, back to Penemunde
you're saying here that Pölker didn't have sex with Ilse, that it was a fantasy? That's not how I read this passage at all -- I definitely thought they f*cked and that's such a poignant and painful situation Pynchon sets up with Ilse -- that Weismann is controlling him by placing him in this officially incestial sexual dependency that even if Weismann was sending different girls each year, Pölker at least had to keep up the pretense that she was his daughter so he could get his annual sex vacation, a situation Weismann could turn into blackmail if needed. I'm rereading the beginning of this section now and also rereading your post, and I think my darker, more perverted reading is true and you're too good-hearted and innocent yourself to see it, as a high school teacher should be. We definitely have a Humbert Humbert here.
Here's a great guided tour through the top passage: https://biblioklept.org/2016/11/13/a-place-must-be-made-for-innocence-gravitys-rainbow-annotations-and-illustrations-for-page-419/
"[William] Blake’s Songs share much in common with Pynchon’s big novel—both argue for the preterite, pointing out the ways in which industrial technologies exploit the most vulnerable among us; both are wildly, acidly vivid; both employ metaphors of fall and ascent; both foreground the utterly real humanity of their subjects."
"a child city counsel of twelve" -- from Pynchon Wiki https://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_397-433: he name evokes Jacob's twelve sons (and the daughter who is not one of the official twelve). This pattern is self-consciously repeated in the Grimms' tale "The Twelve Brothers", where the boys are to die if their mother gives birth to a girl.
The camp, which is also a quasi-town, may be modelled after Theresienstadt, the Jewish town/Lager set up by the Nazis in what is now the Czech Republic. This is suggested by themes like transit, phoney children's paradise, as well as the large orchestra, or the number 60,000 (the number of those who "passed through" Zwölfkinder as well the population of Theresienstadt at its peak). It also recalls another totalitarian institution, that of the communist "children's towns" (large, town-like, somewhat militarized holiday camps for Young Pioneers), whose prototype was Artek in the Soviet Union. (Deutsches Jungvolk also had its summer camps.)"
Tierpark = zoo
Hoard of the Nibelungen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nibelung -- Nibelung looks to be associated with dwarfs and small people. First link above connects this with GR page 516, which maybe I should just quote then, but that points to the 1936 movie Freaks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJVXTKkjsxA&t=45s
Glass Mountain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Glass_Mountain_(fairy_tale)
Hugo Wolf -- Lieder, mostly
Zwölfkinder itself as the place/idea is made up by pynchon for this setting but these types of things did exist in weimar as far as I know
Hmm. That has always been my reading of it.
I’ll get back to you in the next few days. Currently on vacation in NYC and don’t have access to my copy of GR.
no rush obviously.
For me this was a big part of the pathos of Pölker's character; both a source and embodiment of his self-loathing which is also a result of working on a rocket project intended for death instead of space travel, and at the same time he can't keep his hands off the girl who might still be his daughter -- he's kind of a pitiful despicable character in my reading
Ok so yeah, my reading is that it's fantasy, or even an intrusive thought. Though I think it's intentionally left somewhat ambiguous, so to me it could be read either way.
Basically the start where she says "Papi, may I sleep next to you tonight?" (420) leads into the next paragraph where I believe his fantasy was: the hitting of her and the incest. But then the paragraph after is what makes me believe it's 'fantasy.' It starts with, "No. What Pökler did was choose to believe she wanted comfort that night, wanted not to be alone" (421). The 'No' to me signifies a rebuttal of the 'fantasy,' as in 'no, but that's not what I did; instead I set aside the belief that she wanted to fuck me and decided she just wanted comfort.'
Again though, I think it's meant to be ambiguous. I fully believe he would have done it more explicitly if she made her intentions more clear. And yeah, he is a pitiful and dispicable character for sure. Pitiable to some extent, but despicable nonetheless.
Interesting; I can see how there is room for ambiguity here although I didn't notice it before; thanks for pointing it out and I see what you mean. But it's part of a pattern of the book's treatment of sex generally, that it's written the most sexy when it's incest or pedophelia, and then other times it's gross & revolting -- I think P. was challenging the reader to react to these moments where he foregrounds the relationships between the men and the young girls. I'm thinking of course of Bianca aboard the Anubis. I don't know quite what Pynchon wants to achieve with this, but part of me wonders if he's retained the sexual predilections of his elite class even as he exposes some of their politics...I think of other writers of his generation like Alan Ginsberg who were quite open about advocating pedophelia, I don't think Pynchon's going that far, but I also, noticed he makes a point of sexualizing young girls while making sex between consenting adults gross and violent. I think you might be giving into the temptation to choose an interpretation that makes you most comfortable as the reader.
"He chose to believe she wanted comfort that night, wanted not to be alone" --> sounds very much to me like justification not a denial. He chose to believe, in other words, that it was fully consensual, that it was not a rape because she wanted it, which obviously there are lots of ways she could have been coerced, pre-coerced/pimped out by Weismann.
"...and after hours of amazing incest they dressed in silence, and crept out into the leading edge of faintest flesh dawn, everything they would ever need packed inside her flowered bag, past sleeping children doomed to the end of summer, past monitors and railway guards, down at last to the water and the fishing boats, to a fatherly old sea-dog in a braided captains hat" -- this feels too real to me, a part of the actual narrative, and not like a fantasy -- this actually moves the characters through real space, back to Penemunde