Conditioning In reply to 01HSQKHX9W0K

[PNOTESBD at cnsvax.uwec.edu]

I fully agree with Don and Ron's misgivins over Slothrop's erections and his
map.  In fact in *Pynchon Notes* 6 I wrote about how the map is a clever
reader trap.  The point is that most readers buy into Pointsman's reading for
two good reasons and one bad one:

Good Reason #1

When one first starts GR so much is going on that it is hard to find a
readerly focus, and Slothrop's map and Pointsman's interpretation provides a
focus, an appropriately quirky postmodern one at that.  That focus ties the
different plot lines together and suggests that in the figure of Slothrop
there is a real problem needing to be solved.  Of course us Slothrop fans
think the problem is overstated, but narrative needs problems/solutions to
order its logic.

Good Reason #2

Since the plot inside the novel is directed at Slothrop and based on
Pointsman's desire for the Nobel, we need to pay attention to it even if
there is mounting evidence in the text that Slothrop's map is more a semiotic
fiction that by coincidence plays out exactly the same poisson distribution
as the one Roger Mexico keeps of rocket hits.  Now this coincidence is spooky
enough and interesting to consider for what it says about story-telling and
representation, but it is not prompted by a precise set of "sneaky hardons"
stirring in Tyrone's GI undershorts.

Bad Reason

Readers of Pynchon--and I mean those who blindly accept Pointsman's
interpretation (Is he a character one wants to be in cahoots with on
anything?)--should know better.  In most Pynchon, to quote Tom Waits: "The
large print giveth, and the small print taketh away."  Rather than clutching
at certainty--and what better metaphor for certainty than a map--we should
all keep it bouncing.

Duffy Duyfhuizen