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OK, let's talk perversion! Herr Pökler doesn't seem to be sure, as of p. 415, whether this is a musical comedy or a hootenanny (and I also get an image of Peter Pan, leading the clapping to save Tinkerbell); but what really interests me about his song is the parenthetical paragraph that begins, "All together, all you masochists out there..."

Lemme outline a few of the thoughts that run through my head when I read this. 1. Franz is a masochist, a repressed guy leading all the repressed audience members (boys only, or boys and girls?) in song. 1.1. Franz is looking for a Herrin. 1.2. And so is "everyone else," i.e. the Nazis, or the Audience, or whatever... 2. Hitler is a Dominatrix-substitute. 2.11. Well, maybe not "Hitler" but, 2.12. the Rocket is a Dominatrix-substitute. usw... you get the idea. (But do I?)

So where does that leave us, this diaspora of authority-seekers? A while back there was a big argument on the list over whether [paraphrasing here] Pynchon was advocating sexual deviance as an avenue to personal liberation. I don't particularly want to get *that* one going again, but... It seems to me like this episode could be used as ammunition by a bellicose holder of either viewpoint on this issue. Like you could say, "The impulse toward 'perversion' is a natural human attribute, when it's repressed you get frustration and the V-2 or whatever," or also, you could say, "'perversion' is evil the same way the V-2 [or whatever] is." Please let's not have any expansions on either of these statements.

B-but what about p. 426, where the narrator says, "Pökler cannot reconcile, not really, his dream of the perfectly victimized with the need bred into him to take care of business -- nor see how these may be one and the same"? Efficiency = submission? And another thing that really interests me in this connection is p. 424, where I think a possible (if tortured) interpretation is, that the story-teller is comparing him/her/it*self* to a Dominatrix:

The orders to Blizna were strange enough to be Weissman's work: the day Pökler went out to sit in the Polish meadows at the exact spot where the rocket was supposed to come down, he was certain.

Here's what I think about this: Pökler knows someone is playing games with him but he can't be sure who it is. He is in the same position, on several levels, as the reader of this book -- the story-teller and/or Weissman is playing cat-and-mouse with him. I think Weissman/Blicero could be thought of in some respects as being the author of *Gravity's Rainbow*, but I don't really have the theoretical background to defend this assertion -- it just strikes me as a groovy lens to look at the narrative through.

See you in the funhouse,
Jeremy