What exactly is happening?

[Michael D. Workman]

Just to throw something out there, I was recently musing on the function of
the fiction and remembered a discussion not so very long ago about what the
hell exactly Slothrop's character is all about with his missile-erection
and roles in the story. Then I gots to thinking about all these
"professional" and "anti-professional" characters, you know, force and
counter-force. All that started baking like grandma's bread in my
back-brain and I sort of thought to myself...well, hell. Tyrone is just a
know-nothing, ain't he? It's like Pynchon has developed all these
characters to function as vessels for all the myriad forms of knowledge he
has intergrated into himself, and they're running around trying to get at
the TS man, who just seems to get away through some form of black magic
(hence the "black words," the Word made flesh takes on its dark hue when
pressed in on by all those vessels of artificial knowledge--Tyrone as Ghost
in the Machine), and well, no wonder the old boy dissapears in the end, the
counterforce comes to the fore and anti-knowledge kicks in and for Tyrone
to remain authentic, well, he just can't be. It'd be like opposing the
opposition, which he himself represents. So, in order to be that whispy
know-nothing, he has to *become* the holy ghost he imitates. That's the
dinner sequence much much later, and he's there with momma...kinda like
Return of the Jedi, with all the spirits redeemed at the big party. Oh, my.
How crude of me to reference pop kulture...but there's this clash, you see,
and TRP is in the middle of it, the little birdie inside who he's too
strong to let out while he's having this beautiful dream. But he's got a
feather of his own, now don't he...and that's what helps Dumbo to fly.

More as it bursts the bulwarks...


Cheers,

Michael Workman, Proprietor
Underworld Used Books
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