Osbie, Webley, and Pudding vs. Pointsman

[Charles_Sligh at BAYLOR.EDU]

1001 apologies if i have missed a post containing the following connection:

My readings of _GR_ have always sensed  a strong gravitational attraction 
between episode 3.23 (Katje's oedipisode--her extraordinary understanding) and 
edpisode 2.4 (Webley Silvernail's "guest star" appearance with the dancing lab 
rats):

"Now it's back to the cages and the rationalized forms of death[. . . .]  'I 
would set you free, if  I knew how, but it isn't free  out here[. . . .]  I 
can't even give you hope that it will be different someday[. . . .]'  The guest 
star retires down the corridor." 

Several levels of 'attraction here':

both are White Visitation connections;

"Someone, a hidden friend at 'The White Visitation'--perhaps Silvernail himself, 
who's been less than fanatically loyal to Pointsman and his lot--has planted 
Osbie Feel's screen test here where they knew she'd find it";

both (_most importantly_) rest in the context of the great Pudding-Pointsman 
deathstruggle over the W.V.;

Pudding's decline _and_ his deadly coprophiliac-interviews with Katje/Domina 
Nocturna begin in 2.4;  we discover in 3.23 that he has died of the E. coli, 
leaving Katje jobless;

see also Osbie's Silvernail-like lament that "'I wish we could have been more 
direct, but--'" (3.23).

As far as uncnnay connections and how to keep them under control, I see a cut 
and splice method of composition at work--write out a whole storyline around the 
character and then splice, hopscotch, and interconnect.  State of the art.

In some ways Katje and we are the lab rats who enjoy this brief respite from the 
outside world--it's the 'small' mercy we are granted, although no escape.

Charles Sligh











On Sat, 08 Mar 1997 18:29:35 -0800 (PST) slim at humanitas.ucsb.edu (Shirley Lim) 
wrote:

>     If Osbie really is Pynch, then what significance does the screen test
>(always one of my favorite parts) have? Is it another guide to GR, or more
>of a parody, Pynch pointing out what he feels to be the faults in his own
>writing? What about the casting? Katje suggests correspondences, (very
>cool in that it comments on how we should look for those in GR itself, as
>well as providing a take on the conspiracy, and thus on GR) but those that
>she suggests seem a bit too pat. What about Rathborne suggests his
>suitibility for the role? What about the other one (Skall?)?
>     On a side note, Osbie as Pynch could explain why he knows about
>movies (Freaks) that he couldn't possibly have seen at that time. Also, if
>Osbie hands Katje the manuscript, who's she? Is she the editor? If so,
>how does that square with her role in the oven? Well, she *is* the master
>of meta-solutions....
>
>     Gershom Bazerman (from the wrong address)
>
>