Theatre/theater?

[Paul Mackin]

Lycidas at worldnet.att.net wrote:
> 
> Thomas Colin wrote:
> >
> > On the 7 theatres:
> > No, I'm not sure these are the only 7 occurrences. I could have missed a
> > few. So, Let's all hunt down them damn theeeaders, boy!
> 
> I'm really interested in GR.326. "Perhaps it's all
> theater..."
> 
> If this is the only time in GR where Pynchon uses "theater"
> I think you are correct, it's significant. Given all the
> examples you give below--all use the word "theatre"--it
> makes sense to try to figure out why.
> 
> You also noted that Enzian says, "Perhaps it's all
> theater..."
> 
> This is seems very significant too. As I mentioned, the
> reliability of narrative is confirmed here, first because it
> is Enzian and second because he is making a significant
> discover at this moment, personal, historical,
> psychological, theological, philosophical. When certain
> characters make discoveries, particularly about Them, the
> System, the Firm, etc.,  Their Theatre, or what is real and
> not reel or fake, and when characters have visions
> (hallucinatory revelations), what they say or think, their
> narrative is reliable.
> 
> 
> 
There may be a small reliablity of narrator problem however. Because
doesn't Enzian seem a tiny bit hesitant about holding together and
reconciling the fact that the Western and Soviet Allies can be
quarreling amongst themselves over the division of the spoils while at
the same time there are the equally unmistakeable signs that there will
continue to be collusion in the West to keep control firmly in the
West--the West, that is, as far as nonEuropeans like himself are
concerned, and that most important of all the coming cold war
(if it were possible to look into the future) may turn out to be a
semi-cozy agreement to continue the  "alliance" by other means.

Why the clause "perhaps it's theater, though they SEEM no longer to be
Allies" chooses to use the "er" spelling is anybody's guess. The meaning
of the word here is "illusion." This isn't a very usual figurative use
of the word I wouldn't think. Spectacle or sphere of action are more
usual. Still nothing quite seems to justify a change of spelling.
Just thinking out loud.
				P.