Silly observation

[David L. Pelovitz]

Tim Ware wrote:

> >And he and Rachel do have sex.
> 
> Do they?  This is reminiscent of the "deaths in GR" controversy.  It 
> isn't really clear whether or not they have sex (p. 359).  "McClintic ame 
> in and found them like that, holding together until now and again one or 
> the other lost balance and made tiny staggers to compensate.  Underground 
> garage for a dancing-floor.  So they dance all over the cities."  They 
> *probably* do, but...
>
True, my mistake.  In that scene, there is no evidence any coitus
occurs.  But Benny and Rachel do becomea couple (he
even comes to refer to her as "his" girl).  All of which
suiggests they enter a sexual relationship, but Ican't
offer any absolute proof beyond that.

> Also, though I appreciate the harmonic motion angle, the successive 
> generations of characters and the two first meetings seem to me 
> qualitatively different.  
> 
> The second meeting shows that Benny is a lot more excited about potential 
> sex than kinetic sex, if I may abuse your analysis.

The Other side of the whole harmonic thing is that it, like
most science in Pynchon, is subject to a certain level of
artisitic license.  After all, the chapters do not obey
a direct back an forth swing between the two states.
And Benny does seem to learn despite his denials.

During the sequence where he first meets Rachel, he goes
for a ride in her MG.  During this ride, he finds himself
terrified by her driving and watching "the not quite
simple and not quite harmonic motion of her breast".
That's sort of how I see the whole thing.  Sex and fear
of sex are always just a delta-t apart.  And the movement
of energy between the two is nearly harmonic, but there
is always the possibility of an aberration.

After all, if the physics of Pynchon is perfectly
Newtonian, the rocket has to land at the end of
Gravity's rainbow, but it hasn't yet.

David Pelovitz- PELOVTZD at Acfcluster.nyu.edu