silly observations

[David L. Pelovitz]

Tim Ware wrote:

> Ok.  I went to lunch and brought along V. and checked out this whole 
> Benny meets Rachel for the first time again.  Well, it works out fine 
> chronologically.  Benny meets her while working at the resort (or 
> whatever), she graduates from Bennington and moves to NYC where Benny 
> visits her a few times.  Then comes the second first meeting at 
> Space/Time.  
> 
> My reading of this is that it's just a bit of surrealism that serves to 
> foreground how Benny can be sexually aroused and interested in a woman 
> whom he doesn't really know, but can't deal with her once the fantasy is 
> stripped away.  His overwhelming tumescence in the Space/Time scene 
> contrasts sharply with his almost virginal reluctance throughout the rest 
> of the novel.
            
But Benny ends up at Space/Time by following the fold created
by his receding erection.  And he and Rachel do have sex.
Of course, they have sex on a car and only after failing 
to prevent Esther's trip to Cuba for an abortion. 

When benny meets Rachel (real first time), he is aroused by
her until he sees her with the MG.  Then he is freaked
out by her interaction with the inanimate. So in the past,
sexual potential does not lead to sexual activity for Benny.
In the present, the loss of sexual potential leads him to
Rachel, and the destruction of that potential by Esther
leads to kinetic activity.

I've beaten this harmonic motion structure of V. drum
here before.  In the past, everyone thinks about things
and sees the apocalypse coming, but action is always
being averted.  In the present, it's all activity
without purpose.  With the conscious effort to avoid
learning.  If thought is potential energy and
action is kinetic energy, then the book is one
big pendulum ride with the past at the end points
of the arc, and the present at bottom center.

And what's Benny's big fear once he and Rachel become   
lovers? He is "unwilling to see her proved inanimate
 as the rest" (359). No potential there.  And Esther
becomes yo-yo champ by going all the way to Cuba
to stop her potential to procreate.  

Which doesn't exactly answer the first question of
why the meet for the first time twice.  Each swing
of the pendulum follows the same energy pattern, 
it need not follow exactly the same path (yo-yos
rarely do either), and look at how many different
ends points there are on the arc.  So each swing is 
slightly different wit somewhat different arrangements.
So Fausto can see himself as four generations, 
the Stencils, the Godolphins and the Bongo-Shaftesbury's
can suggest (if not exactly repeat) each other 
across generations, and Benny and Rachel can meet
twice.

David pelovitz - PELOVTZD at Acfcluster.nyu.edu