VLVL [8] When BV possessed her

[Paul Mackin]

On Fri, 22 Jan 1999, Doug Millison wrote:

> On another thread, Dr. Elasmo, with his visage plastered on his television
> commercials ("his ubiquitous screen image"),  somehow reminds me of the eye
> doctor who looks down from the billboards in The Great Gatsby, with the big
> difference that Elasmo is a character in VL, apparently an agent of Brock
> Vond, responsible for Weed's  "therapy sessions" (p. 240), which sound a
> bit like Frenesi's trips behind the "Thorazine curtain".  Interesting to
> see Mr. P. put a dentist in this role, working for a character, BV, that
> Pynchon associates with Nazi SS officer, animal predator (raptor),  child
> molester, on top of the normal dose of villainy that comes with the
> prosecutor territory. On the lighter side, Elasmo is such a goofy name,
> plus the "credit dentist" associations that Paul has mentioned -- P's
> having fun with this one

I had another thought on this one. Credit dentists in their ads (in
my day on the radio--probably KFWB) emphasized that the experience would
be painless both to your pocketbook (an easy payment plan) and to your
nerve endings. One name I remember was Dr. Painless Parker. Another even
more famous one was Dr. Beauchamp (pronounced Bee-chimp). Although Larry
Elasmo's practice was described as a "world of discomfort" which suggests
Nazi-like purposeful infliction of pain which certainly some might
associate with dentistry (plus there was the Kafkaesque prolongation of
the process), the actual case was that though it took an inordinate amount
of time Elasmo drugged pain away, only with the extra wrinkle that also
over time patients (here Weed) became forgetful of things like committment
to the movement and such. The very name Elasmo suggests forgetfulness and
loss of resolve. Larry provides more lassitude or something like that.

			P.