GRGR(9) Pointsman/Roger

[MASCARO at humnet.ucla.edu]

Well, my incursion into the wars of steeldom having drained me, I lumber to catch up to 
the pack, feeling a lot like that *Beetlebaum* in the (I think it's a) Spike Jones number 
about the horserace--anybody help my memory on this?  I will try to respond to a
Andrew's questions over the next day or so, but regarding the opening passage, I quote 
*that* chris below to concur w/ her that it is a significant marker, a self-referential 
description, found as often happens  in an episode's opening sequence.  
We might also note the continuing effort of the text to enact the experience of switching 
causes and effects, as we are again plunged into a contextless altered state of reality and 
only later cued into where we are in the narrative flow.

Most importantly, it seems to me that this *paradoxical phase*  (where the slightest 
stimulus evokes the entire powerful conditioned response), which Pointsman is about to 
experience, exactly describes, does it not, the situation discussed earlier where Roger and 
Jess get those orgasms triggered by the merest touch, long before *C*  is ever properly 
introduced to *C*  Is this another way of yoking Roger the anti-Pointsman to his 
Pointsman dark twin?  Folks have commented that the text takes pains to show that, 
while it is more congenial to Roger's world view, it sees that view as being as limited in 
its way as Pointsman's.  I agree with that assessment, and don't you think we are 
supposed to recall that strange initial orgasm when we learn what the *paradoxical phase* 
is?
>
>     1) `habitually blank' (136.39) Why are these words italicised? Oh,
>     and whose are they by the way?
>     
>     I disagree here, Paul, with your assessment that these words 
>     are italicised "only for mild emphasis."  I think the italics are a 
>     red light -- the kind that we have seen in use since 
>     Pirate's opening dream.  (I'm kind of stuck on this, I know.)  Our 
>     omniscient narrator seems to be stepping in once again to signal to us 
>     that the term itself and what follows require particular attention.
>     
>     To me, this near-ironic use of a Pavlovian concept -- habit, I mean, 
>     or what is perceived as habit, through conditioning (this *is* a 
>     Pavlovian concept, is it not?) -- draws attention to the dominant 
>     character and topics of the section.  We are currently inhabiting the 
>     dream and, later, the inner mind of Pavlovian Pointsman, yes?, so 
>     terms like "predictable" and "constant" have a layered effect, in that 
>     their scientific as well as their everyday meanings are being invoked. 
>     
>     I guess the point is to further illustrate (along with the narrative 
>     -- the story related here is of Pointsman's "should haves," ain't it?) 
>     the completeness of his immersion in the scientific world (as 
>     these phrases, second nature now, come so naturally) and of his 
>     removal or remoteness from the, what, real world, the world of 
>     experience, the world of love?
>     
>     I think the dream stuff here is dead-on tied to Pirate's/Slothrop's 
>     dream:  "More than an 'event'... our common mortality...these tragic 
>     days..."  Pynchon rocks the house with this subtle interrelations and 
>     dreamer Chris finds it very exciting.
>     <snip snip>