The Tale of Tyrone's dick

[ray gonne]

Jan Klimkowski wrote:
> 
> My primary reading of the rocket/hardon scenes is as the most brilliantly
> surreal parody of wartime behaviourist research.
> 
> There were plenty of behaviourists like Pointsman who were given cash and
> experimental freedom by the war, and I can think of at least three
> British institutes which, in different ways, could serve as models for
> the White Visitation.  Equally, we now know that it wasn't just those
> nasty Nazis who "recruited" children into bizarre experimental
> programmes.  The historical context making it possible for young Tyrone
> to have been sold to one of his country's covert scientists certainly
> exists - both in Britain and the US.
> 
> With this historical background as a given, enter Thomas Pynchon the
> artist.  A few turns of the spiral later, and we end up with a
> conditioned stimulus-response between Slothrop's erections and the
> Rocket, which is a stroke of surreal genius.  The parody then develops
> with bumbling surveillance of Slothrop's amorous liaisons, leading to
> manic attempts to discern The Pattern, and various levels of paranoia as
> to precisely what kind of relationship exists between Slothrop and
> Rocket/Death.
> 
> One of the crucial things about covert science, ie science funded by
> intelligence agencies and classified, is that Peer Review as we know it
> simply doesn't exist.  Thus bad science can thrive.  And scientists,
> (often recruited precisely because their ethics are dubious), get endless
> grants, academic freedom, and supplies of experimental subjects, to
> pursue their own particular hobby horses.  These hobby horses are, on
> occasion, both insane and sadistic.  As a surreal parody of this, the
> Tale of Slothrop's Dick is in a class of its own.
> jan

what's the source for this review? nice research--has their been a
revival? (insert emoticon denoting good will) 
i don't see the rocket hard on as surreal at all, which is part of the
reason it works for me. the way you describe it here seems to support my
claim--this scenario is par for the war course. i'm a big fan of writing
that can easily be dubbed postmodern but is in fact realistic, and among
the coovers and barths (both of whom i admire and enjoy reading), this
is an aspect of pynchon's brilliance, for me. borderline absurd,
perhaps, but not surreal, is my take.
ray