Woge, Thanatoids and Spirits

[Sebastian Dangerfield]

On Tue, 8 Dec 1998 01:05:18 EST Cchoskin at aol.com gives us a spectral
inventory from the pages of VL:

>After reading this I went back and tried to find all the mentions of
ghosts, spirits 
>and other beings from another realm.  [. . . ]
>The spirits and ghosts appear to haunt everyone.  Zoyd has dreams of 
>carrier pigeons bearing messages.  Frenesi "believing that the rays
coming out 
>of the TV screen would act as a broom to sweep the room clear of all 
>spirits".

>It is soon after DL and Takeshi meet Ortho Bob Dulang that they have 
>the vision from the window "all angles ordinarily hidden, in fact, were 
>somehow clearly visible..naive, direct, no shadows, no hiding places..."
>Brock Vond too, is haunted by spirits.  Particularly from his repressed
>feminine side.  In his dreams the "Madwoman of the Attic" comes to 
>visit him.
>I don't see this as some sort of "ghost of the revolution" but more as 
>the transcendent world impinging on the "real world".

Kudos for cataloguing these brushes with something--remains to be seen
what.  

Perhaps in some sense, what we are seeing ateast in some instances, is
the "real world"--i.e. mortality--rearing its visage to remind people
that they have not, despite their self-delusions to the contrary, that
they have not managed to cheat Thanatos.  

Please forgive my current plucking of a single note--Been Down So Long .
. . (which novel is 90% of the reason I went to Cornell) --but this
stuff, particularly the visages from the window at Your Mama Eats, are
somewhat reminiscent of the monkey-demon from Farin[~]a.   Pynchon's
introduction stated that the monkey demon episode "remains one of the
most effective of the many dark scenes in this novel."  It serves as a
reminder that "[d]eath, no idle prankster, is always . . . just outside
the window."  This reminder, according to Pynchon, comes amidst the
"cosmic humor" of Gnossoss's "blundering attempts to make some kind of
early arrangement with Thanatos, to find some kind of hustle that will
get him out of the mortal contract we're all stuck with."  This tells us,
I think, something abotu Farina's book, and a great deal about P's
preoccupations.  By 1959, P wrote "I suppose . . . I was learning from
Farina how to be amused at some of my obsessions."  Like the COTS's
evocation of Athene, some of these ghostly intrusions, and many
characters' efforts to get on Thanatos's Exempt list, e.g., Takeshi's
etrepreneurial efforts "adjust" Thanatoids out of their Karmic burden (as
well as his efforts to cheat the death sentence imposed by the Vibrating
Palm) show that he learned very well.  

I remember the "Madwoman in the Attic" dream intriguing me, but the
novel, as far as I can tell, never gives us anything with which to link
this reference.  We know precious little about Brock.  What is this demon
that might be haunting him?  Is this some kind of allusion to a dark
past, a la Rochester in Jane Eyre, who had improvidently married and
whose attraction to Jane was cursed by this earlier bargain? 
Unfortunately the text leaves us, as far as I can recall, no clues
(further evidence of the underdevelopment of that character--I think he
had bigger lans for BV, but for some reason or anothernever realized
them).  

Thus, pace Paul (whose impatience with the popularity of 'little
people'--and not the DMT kind--I understand), I think that there is
something substantial to these references.  I don't think they appear due
to the cultural forces that have given us 'Touched By An Angel," covens
of latter-day 'druids,' or too many cats named 'Wicca,' but I do think
these apparitions are more than 'decorative.'

sebastian
who is occasionally haunted by a mandriall at the window
and who currently can't get the tune 'Reno Nevada' out of his head
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