This whole business of trying to post on whole sections was a terrible idea. I'll be thankful for the fragmenting that the Zone will necessitate.
So the impression I get from the early half of this second part, the thing that's kind of right there in the title, is that Slothrop is sort of placed by Pynchon at this fringe casino because the metaphor of it is the only thing blatant enough so-far that even Slothrop himself will see it, and begin to acknowledge his paranoia: that he is "playing against the invisible House, perhaps after all for his soul...." (207) The Casino lit up at night is even referred to as being "in full holocaust," creating a sinister association of this "House" (the many-times referred to "they") with the War, or at least the War-state. All this has been said before on this blog, in so many words, but I think it's big that at this point, in this melodramatic, Marx Brothers-y locale, Slothrop can finally give voice to it all. "'Tamara's gonna get here before tonight'" Slothrop interjects in a Groucho Marx voice." (249) That thought becomes this:
In Writing Pynchon, McHoul and Wills call attention to Pynchon's manipulation of "mention vs. use." (51) According to those two, Tom uses both in such a way as to blue the distinction, pointing to a moment in In the Zone when Slothrop wants to sew an R onto his Rocketman cape (using the cinematic oeuvre) and in the next sentence says, "as when Tonto..." (mentioning the cinematic oeuvre). In this way, mention and use become flush. It seems Derridean, related to his thing about "citationality." I think this rhetorical trick that they identify here is at play with other binaries, perhaps in a less technical way, but still there, the way opposites like Hansel and Gretel (Katje and Gottfried, the child actors in the pantomime, et al.) twist into and out of each other nebulously (Hansel is played by a girl at the play, Blicero cross-dresses his dominated). It happens in Pointsman's lab too, the way "it occurs to Webley Silvernail, this lab here is also a maze, i'n't now..." (232) blending, or at least denying the separation of scientist and subject. Pointsman refers to the "extinction" of his program (231), and by use of this specifically behaviorist term, invalidates his programs position as a solid They, and makes it an at least occasional "Us" (done on a grander scale by the fact that Pointsman, the personification of at least one of Slothrop's "they"s, is a sometimes narrator, whose thoughts we experience. We are not in Slothrop's position, no matter the naturalized desire to be there, our taught protago-worship.
"How high does it go?" (255) -- Identifying the rocket itself as a form of paranoia, or maybe theorizing as to what will happen as a result of paranoia, when mental brenschluss occurs.
A last thought, when I first read the novel, I couldn't really read the passage about Brigadier Pudding and "Domina Nocturna" as anything other than scary, lurid, manic, pornographic. But for some reason, this time through, it just seemed like one of the saddest 5-6 pages up to that point; I think Pynchon really wants to communicate a horror in the position Pudding occupies with regard to WWII, someone who cannot understand this thing that is happening in the world. "They have taken him so far from his simple nerves. They have stuffed paper illusions and military euphemisms between him and this truth, this rare decency, this moment at her scrupulous feet." (237) Pudding needs certain things from a War for it to make sense, not only pain, but this towering black villain of myth. WWII does not provide these things, except in the underground, illicit dealings of night -- a more potent and prevalent trope in Pynchon than I had previously realized.
I know I'm leaving a lot from this section out (the bigger things that come to mind are the overwhelming presence of cinema, King Kong, and the weird moray eel departure). I'm still thinking about those things. I responded to your post about "operational paranoia" as a comment, in case you didn't see it.
Now for the Zone I guess,
Matt
No comments:
Post a Comment