GRGR(11) - PFP#1

[Michael Crowley]

fqmorris at HOTMAIL.COM wrote:
> 
> ----------
> (237.35) Proverbs for Paranoids, 1: You may never get to touch the
Master, 
> but you can tickle his creatures.
> ----------
> 
> In the previous chapters Slothrop has realzed some form of power.  It
seems 
> his adolescent rebellion has paid off.  The drinking game and contact
with 
> Katje have him aware of his own power of touch.  "Touch" and "tickle"
were 
> what They did to him so long ago...
> 

And the first two proverbs carry over the S&M theme from the previous
episode, Slothrop beginning o see himself as one of those rats in a
cage, some unidentified power getting off on screwing with him.
Slothrop's paranoia--and especially his hyper-awareness of his paranoia--
could be read as a form of masochism.  So who's the sadistic
Master--definitely Pointsman on one level, but maybe also the narrator or
Pynchon himself.  It's not as explicit as a Barth story where a writer
realizes he's being written, but similar.  Plus, the use of the second
person in the intial Proverb invites us to identify with Slothrop as the
manipulated object of the narrator's sadistic plot twists.  We never do
get to touch him; we never get the answers we want, not even when he says,
alright, here's your cause and effect...


Mike Crowley
------------
crowley at arches.uga.edu