GRGR(9): Welcome

[Terrance F. Flaherty]

OK were all cool. No hard feelings here. Lets move on...

David Morris wrote:
> 
> >From: "Terrance F. Flaherty"
> >
> >Pynchon layers the characters with roles--like film cameos,
> >for example in the first two chapters of Part II we see
> >slothrop and katje in various roles. Some read katje as
> >simply a venus/aphrodite/...
> >
> 
> She is not "simply," but she IS very _overtly_, Venus.

Toss out "SIMPLY" my mistake. No one suggested this. 
> 
> >Here is part of an off-list discussion concerning slothrop
> >as Tannhauser and katje as venus.
> >
> 
> I proposed Slothrop as Bacchus, which might bear some parallels w/
> Tannhauser, But I am very ignorant of Opera in general.
> 
> >I don't agree with this. She plays several roles and
> >slothrop plays several roles just in the first two chapters
> >of Part II. Why limit Katje to venus? I don't see it. Just
> >follow the costumes and we see slothrop and katje in several
> >roles.
> 
> Has any one proposed limits?  However, I do maintain that most of her
> costumes you mention below refer to Venus.

I don't see but one costume that is venus like. 
> 
> >She must have come from the sea, yes, but she is in black,
> >frail girl-- Katje we have met.
> 
> Well, ideally she should be naked, but that comes later.  But hasn't she
> gone blonde for this role?

Right Blonde, but she comes from the sea in black in the
first scene.
> 
> >Later she will dress in sea-green, medici with tiara, then white pelisse
> >with ostrich
> >plumes, spice,--balerrina, then she is born again, rises,
> >white skin with dark ventral side
> 
> Later on the dresses, but this "ventral" is a fish (also animal belly, I
> know) reference:
> Main Entry: ventral
> Function: noun
> Date: 1834
> : a ventral part (as a scale or fin)

OK, but why does Pynchon use the same word "ventral" to
describe Slothrop's "kingly presence" ?? What about the
ostrich plumes and snow and gold lashes and pelisse?
> 
> >Katje has a
> >closet filled with props, clothes, and when she invites him
> >up for a little rocket rolling, she is in a Medici gown
> >sea-green and tiara (this is not simply a Venus costume).
> 
> The references to Venus are many here.  The dress color, of course.
Right


  The
> patron of the Uffizi Museum, from whence "the Birth of Venus" is stolen in
> _V_ was built by the Medici clan, as was the painting commissioned by them.
> Also, remember that torso-only statue of Venus?:  "The Medici Venus" seen
> at:
> http://www.giustgallery.com/63.htm

Yes
> 
> Also check out Barbie/Venus at:
> http://www.hausfrauenseite.de/index.shtml?http://hausfrauenseite.de/barbie.html

Check out Varo's "the flee."
> 
> >But, when Slothrop goes to her room she is dressed in white
> >pilesse, with white ostrich plumes and new snow, and spice,
> >hardly a costume for a Mediterranean goddess. She "re-forms,"
> >she "evaporates" to other parts of the room and when she
> >removes the white garments she is still whiter beneath
> >it--"she rises, born again," a white "ballerina."
> 
> The rising (as out of water) is her "born again" (again that Boticelli
> painting, "Birth of...) w/ "whiter than white" skin, again as in the
> painting.  The pile of white sequins [sea-kwins? ;)] I read as the sea-foam
> sperm which spawned her.
> 

OK
> Not that all this "limits" Katje to Venus...
> 
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