GRGR(3): Some more questions...

[Paul Mackin]

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From: 	Murthy Yenamandra
Sent: 	Tuesday, October 29, 1996 12:31 AM
To: 	pynchon-l
Subject: 	GRGR(3): Some more questions...

Here are a few more questions/ideas about GRGR(3) to divert all you
folks who don't want to talk about Pynchon's personal life.

1) (V36.10) "[...] though herself too young to know _that_, to know,
   like Pirate, what the lyrics to "Dancing in the Dark" are _really_
   about..."

Well, what _are_ they about?

The GR Companion offers three possibilities. My choice is DEATH--something one "too young" would not have had occasion to consider.


2) (V36.35) "you've come and taken me off on your pirate ship. A girl of
   good family and the usual repressions. You've raped me. And I'm the
   Red Bitch of the High Seas..."

Why the "Red Bitch of the High Seas"? A throw-away rape fantasy to
boot...

Maybe also a fantasy of revenge. Vaguely reminds one of Pirate Jenny's
dream of returning to destroy the town that missued her. The pirate image
reversed.

Und da Schiff mit acht Segein
Und mit funfzig Canonen
Wird beschiessen die Stadt.

                 --Bert Brecht

3) (V37.35) "They're both of them peevish tonight, whippy as sheets of
   glass improperly annealed, ready to go smash at any indefinite touch
   in a whining matrix of stresses-"

Wow! Especially love the "whining matrix of stresses". Fall of the
crystal palace?

Or another of P's famous takes on technology. An engineer's tool box
applied to the human psyche.

4) (V40.29) "old ladies who have a special place in their night-thoughts
   for the Fire Service _no please you're not going to use that great
   Hose on me ... oh no ... aren't you even going to take off those
   horrid rubber boots ... yesyes that's -"

There's another fantasy for you (to tie in with that other thread).

P does love his rape fantasies. His fantasy of their fantasy.


				P.