GRGR(1): Pirate's voice

[jporter]

Jean, in response to Andrew, acknowledges:

>Well, I realise this is coming a bit late but . . .

 Ah but late is the order of the day...

and then quotes Andrew:
>
>     `"I haven't even done me morning push-ups yet."'. Pirate, like
>     any nouveau, social climber from Tooting or elsewhere, would
>     never drop into Cockney-speak in front of Bloat, who went to
>     Oxford, or indeed anyone with whom he was not intimate. So,
>     impressed as I am by our boy's knowledge of the argot, this use
>     of `me' for `my' jars every time I read it.
>
>This never struck me as Pirate's true voice, but an imitation, meant
>to disguise his complaint as "kidding," even though he is probably
>annoyed at having to leave so early.  So he uses a voice that would,
>via prejudice, be thought of as typically complaining and lazy.   If
>he had been an American, he would have used a rural accent, or, even
>more bigoted, a black one.
>
>Of course, if he is cockney (is he?  I can't remember) the sarcasm's
>more subtle - U.S. southerners can use this to great advantage when
>dealing with uppity yanks by actually playing to their prejudices.

Cockney or no, there is also the question of just how racist Pirate is,
e.g., beginning with..."-it was during his Kipling Period, beastly
Fuzzy-Wuzzies far as eye could see, dracunculiasis and Oriental sore
rampant among the troops, no beer for a month, wireless jammed by other
powers who would be masters of these horrid blacks, God knows why..."

Not that it would be surprising if Pirate were a racist, or anti-semitic
for that matter, but is that a correct reading of the above?

In another vein, the paragraph just before the "Kipling Period" quote
describes Pirate's own "long-running fantasy...in which he would be
abducted by an organization of dacoits or Sicilians, and used for
unspeakable purposes."

This, to my ear, anticipates the fantasies of Pudding, to come. And it
underlines, what seems to be a connection between Pirate and Pudding: the
need to be humiliated, particularly by those of darker color.

Then again, if Pirate's *condition* were capable of tuning in the future,
he may be responding unconsciously, in a fantasy he thought his own, to the
collective fantasies of the subcontinent, enthralled as it would become by
the humiliation and resurrection of Phoolan Devi, The Bandit Queen. But I
guess that would be giving Pynchon just a little bit too much credit.

Jody