Getting it

[Bonnie Surfus (ENG)]

On Wed, 5 Jun 1996, Caldera Desktop User wrote:

> For those who have forgotten or never got it in the first place,a brief synopsis:
> 
> 
> Slothrop wants to get laid for free, like Benny Profane in V.,
> and other aimless types we could mention. His work with
> ACHTUNG has brought him into contact with many others
> with their own expense accounts and he dreams of being a big
> star foreign agent like Pirate Prentice. Knowing how paranoid
> the Firm is, if Pointsman is anything to go by, he need only
> leave something like a map of London lying around and their
> suspicions will be aroused. To this end . . . Next thing he is
> being well fucked and fed on the Riviera, travelling free 
> through the Zone, answerable to no one, getting to indulge his
> transvestism, having an extraordinary variety of sexual experi-
> ences, still perhaps ending with an honourable discharge . . . . 
> 
> McHoul and Wills, _Writing Pynchon_, p. 48.
> 
> 						P.
> 
> 
Um.  I never quite "got" that Slothrop left the map "lying around" to 
raise the suspicions of the Firm.  Not that this doesn't make sense, but 
it does alter my perception of, well, the whole novel.  At least, it 
makes Slothrop less of a dupe and more of a clever conniver (although 
wrongdoing here, is not implied, on my part).

Am I the only fool who hasn't "gotten" this?

I realize I'm asking for it.