The C-Word, et cetera

[Skip Wolfe]

I think one interesting thing about the Roger/Jessica passages here is
the contrast between what is essentially a cute,
boy-meets-girl-they-fall-in-love story, and the actual sexual and
linguistic content.  We sort of expect hand-holding, the timid first
kiss, that kind of thing, but what we get is coming, cocks & cunts, and
fingers up the asshole.  In a tenderly-described scene where we would
expect to see Roger stroking Jessica's hair while she falls asleep we get
cunnilingus instead.  This has always struck me, but I haven't figured
out quite why, exactly.  Maybe we're so used to seeing sex and love being
portrayed as separate, at most casually-related, entities, that we're
shocked when we see them so inextricably joined -- the way we're taught
they should be.

And what about, "Whenever it happens, though, the light always gets very
red for them."??  This doesn't sound very Pynchonesque to me -- more like
something Hemingway would have dropped in there and, when asked about it,
said was part of the story's metaphysics.  I suppose it could refer  to
red-shift of light, too -- something (the happiness of their doomed,
transitory wartime interlude?) receding from them at high speed.

	Skip