VV(6) - Flesh for Frankenstein

[jbor]

I agree that the scene with the (female) nurse named Irving Trench and the
doctor make it all sound a bit like Dr Frankenstein and his hunchback.
("Quiet, schlep", says Shale Schoenmaker to his leering offsider -- great
take on Victor and Igor!) And,

    The sexual metaphor in all this wasn't lost on Trench, who kept
   chanting, "Stick it in . . . pull it out . . . stick it in . . .
   ooh that was good . . . pull it out" and tittering softly above
   Esther's eyes. (105.17)

The first part of this scene, and Trench peering through the curtain later
as the doctor and Esther go at it (109.7 up), reminds me of Warhol's 'Flesh
for Frankenstein' a little too. Wonder if Warhol was a fan?

some stills here:
http://cinema.gothic.ru/database/flesh_for_frankenstein.htm

The image of Esther's sex-switch (109.2) echoes, metaphorically at least
(--"Trench's gift for metaphor", another fine joke--), Bongo-Shaftsbury's
actual electric switch back in Ch 3 too. Again, here it seems that the human
sexual instinct is being depicted as a mechanical, rather than an organic
urge. The "no meaning yes" come-on line Schoenmaker uses (and Esther's
chanted chorus of "No" in time to the doctor's rutting song) gives the lie
to Esther's "passivity" too I think. She has been the instigator, after all.

best

----------
>From: "David Morris" <fqmorris at hotmail.com>
>To: pynchon-l at waste.org
>Subject: VV(6) - Chapter Four
>Date: Fri, Dec 15, 2000, 12:18 PM
>


>
> II:  Here is the Nose Job.  This is where the fruit of Schoenmaker's "decay
> of purpose" is manifest.  He is of Pynchon's mad-scientists, complete with
> his cynical and salacious assistant Trench.  The ensuing threesome is
> chilling and fascinating.
>
> III:  Here we have the product of the mad-scientist:  Esther after the Nose
> Job.  She has become Schoenmaker's slave.  She loves her new-found extreme
> passivity.  She is relieved and enthralled to be so fully controlled.