Pointsman's Fear

[Fakhereddine Berrada]

I am not sure I agree with this under-reading of the importance of 
Marvy's character to the overall issue of blackness, race and racism, and 
the latter's connection to the System (Marvy is MAJOR Marvy, after all!). 
"Major Marvy, with his reflexes about blackness" (TAP) is the only 
character who gets castrated in the novel. Since the castration is 
meant for Slothrop does symbolically associate the two characters in the 
sense that Slothrop's dreams/hallucinations begin to be seen as the 
subconsciously internalized racism and xenophobia that Marvy's character 
manifests and simulaneously parodies. Marvy, Slothrop, Malcolm X, J. 
Kennedy, all participate, one way or another, in that scene where 
"Shoeshine boy Malcolm's in the toilet slappin' on the Shinola, working 
off white man's penance on his sin of being born the color of shit 'n' 
Shinola." 
fb.


On Thu, 27 Feb 1997, RICHARD ROMEO wrote:

> Henry M wrote:  Marvy is the only wholly unsympathetic Pynchon character 
> that comes to
> my mind. Look what happens to him! A-and he's a Merican, not some
> personification of Nazi evil.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> Isn't Marvy pretty low on Their totem pole?  I don't think Pynch takes 
> anything about Marvy seriously, as he does Weissman and Pointsman.  Marvy 
> is a bufoon and a puppet, a true cartoon;  a low-level thug, all brawn, 
> no brains.
> 
> Richard Romeo
> Coordinator of Cooperating Collections
> The Foundation Center-NYC
> 212-807-2417
> rromeo at fdncenter.org
> 
> 
> 
>