GRGR(4) - Slothrop's Rape
DudiousMax at aol.com
DudiousMax at aol.com
Fri Jun 18 14:39:47 CDT 1999
Dudes,
Well, if it's not the 3rd person omniscient narrator, who's
voice is it?? Is it Slothrop's? Is it Pointsman's? Is it Mexico's?
Spectro's? Do we have a clue? And if it is not the author's voice, then
whose voice is it? Does it matter at all? I think it matters a lot.
And if it is the Author's voice, then when he says Slothrop
escaped with "his virgin asshole preserved" is he being ironic? And if he's
being ironic, why does he bother with the next sentence? Fully quoted:
"Now some folks might say whew, thank God for that, and others
moaning a little, aw shucks, but Slothrop doesn't say much of anything cause
he didn't feel much of anything." Because he repressed it? Because it
didn't happen in the first place? Because he's stonyonyoned?
Is there an indicator that the author is being ironical?
Means the opposite to what he writes? Means something other than what he
writes?
I think he is titillating the reader. I think he makes the
scene a highly charged near miss. I think he focuses the reader on all the
sexual stuff (None of which is real. It is a drug induced trance, we
shouldn't forget. If he gets raped it is inside a drugged fantasy.) and all
the disgusting fantasy shit, so he can drop the political assassination stuff
on us, hardly noticeable, a grace note at the margin of consciousness. He
does give us the mention of JFK later in the SAME bleeping PARAGRAPH. And
still a page or two later the sentence, "And only one president, and one
assassin, and one election."
This is the essential Pynchon, feinting, diverting our
attention, and then dropping some item on us that is the telling detail.
IMHO, the issue of assassins and assassinations takes up more of the novel,
as the band plays on, than the question of whether or not Slothrop was raped
(in his fantasy).
This is one of TRP's signature tricks. And he means for it
to push the hot button in his readers. We all react, on one level or
another, to Slothrop's wild ride. It's a GOTCHA! So we won't notice the
other minor details that turn out to be major. That's what I think is going
on. Foreground/background reversal. And this one proves to be a startling
example. But what do I know? I'm only...
Max
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