What Jessica Knew

[Paul Mackin]

Before we leave Jessica's chapter (pp.53-60), there's something I wanted to ask about.

Is she supposed to be some kind of seer, clairvoyant, or mystic?

With Roger and earlier in the book she pretends total out-to-lunchness in the
world of ideas. But there is also continually the feeling that she is aware of much much more.

The interjection (in the middle of J's reverie at the window) of the scene between Mexico and Pointsman (beginning with "An Erlenmeye flask bubbles on the ring" (p. 55)) can of course be seen as a shift to the omnipresent pov of some off-stage narrator. But there is a hint at least that this is NOT the case. "Somewhere a snapshot of Jessica peeks from beneath Roger's old
Whittaker and Watson." Can it be Jessica HERSELF who somehow is
doing the peeking?

And a little later, her more  conventional recollection of the conversation with Pirate over  Roger's "paying the minimum dues." J has no trouble understanding exactly what Pirate is getting at--how  his down-to-earth approach (not to say those swoony eyes)  undermines Roger's sterile statistical analysis of the way things are.

And what about Jessica's feeling that the war has really changed nothing
for her, that she could to back.  So unlike Roger's view of everything back
then being so silly and presently inconceivable. Does J have some kind
of dispensation from the horrendous effects of the War?

So my question is, is there something really "deep" about all this?
Or is it merely a brilliant Pynchonian surface requiring nothing more
underneath for its completion? Of course there is nothing "mere" about
a Pynchonian surface. A further explaining of one of these marvels might be carrying coals to Newcastle. 

I remember something Jules said to the effect we shouldn't look too
deeply into how the master gains his effects. Wish I could remember
his words. Proabably in those archives somewhere.

			P.