Hose-out time

[Paul Mackin]

On Thu, 1 Feb 1996, JM wrote:

> The fragmentation that takes place over the last hundred 
> pages or so of _GR_ has (over the years) been one of the 
> most perplexing parts of "the book."  Aside from fragments 
> here and there that I much enjoyed, like "Byron the Bulb" for 
> instance, this was a stretch of the novel more to be endured 
> than to be enjoyed.   One passage that I liked has never 
> been appreciated on this list (to my knowlege) and that's the 
> passage on pages 696-697 (Viking) about "sitting in a white 
> tiled room half an hour before hose-out time."  It's the 
> imagery of the sound vortex, and the apocalyptic double 
> entendre which most impressed me.  (I associate it with the 
> final chapter of Melville's _Confidence Man_ which also 
> seems to take place just before "hose-out time.")   Anyone 
> else have an especial affection for this passage, or particular 
> insights concerning it?  -jm  

I like the hose-out passage because it's an explicit and extended
example of what Pynchon does with scientific constructs--in this
case, the invention of a sound-carrying ether in outer space with
occasional vacuum-creating eddies to form sound shadows, briefly silencing
the roar of the sun, thereby allowing us to hear conversations we
would otherwise not be privy to. And much more. (May even
be the suggestion of a particle theory of sound, I dunno) 

And so is mounted one more elaborate stage upon which to play
out the drama of Us/Them--the central formulation of the human
condition in GR-world, more or less the equivalent of Original Sin
in the Christian cosmos, but better suited for a modern audience.

It doesn't hurt to stress the similarities of the two worlds. Saint
Augustine identifies Original Sin (mythologically portrayed
as the disobedience of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden) with 
the fact of Death (including the various unpleasantnesses leading up to it).
In GR, we are also all under under the sentence of Death, but with a special
twist. It is the way They control Us.

Anyway, that's one way of looking at it.

Of course, in GR-world there's always a lot of fun to be had.
The whorls of the Danish's being likened to the vacuum-creating whirlpools
in the sound ether give a humorous not to say homey touch.

There's no stopping our creative scientist. And there's always room for 
a second opinion and a new scientific contruct. Maybe the Vacuum of 
outspace is actually the true sitution after all--only They are using it
on Us. Yes,  each of us is surrounded with a void (a little sleep, 
maybe). So They can put us in one of those Dark Dream things. They even are 
known to use those DDs on themselves. Ho, ho, ho.

Heaven knows how the Kenosha Kid fits into all of this. I fear _that_
mystery will remain with us. I mean who exactly _is_ the Kenosha Kid.
Anybody got any more ideas?

"Hosing out" must be the way They accomplish our demise. Except a page
or so earlier the Flush Toilet, a similar device, was presented as
an instrument We might have used (if the water hadn't been shut off) in our
desperate defense against Them.

One final, strictly personal I suspect, reaction: I associate
"it's almost hose-out time" with that English pub in _The Waste Land_
where they say (though much earlier in the evening), HURRY UP PLEASE 
ITS TIME.

So now, thoroughly believing in sound shadows, when I come to the
following,

Come into the bulbshine and sit with him, with the stranger at the
small public table. It's almost hosing-out time. See if you can 
sneak in under the shadow too. (p. 697)

	well I just naturally think of some other lines,

(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you . . . " 

I know it doesn't make much sense. It's the "sound" of it.

				P.