Fwd: Satanic Bloodlines-NP

[jbor]

Max (right on cue) sez

> In the "snot soup" dinner, it seems, the diners are eager to
> take part in eating human flesh and Rog and Pig, by use of wit, escape being
> courses in the dinner itself.  These folks are executives from the major
> corporations.  So human sacrifice, and cannibalism is here a metaphor for
> what was WWII, or that episode where the changing of the guard took place.
> You don't think?  Could it be?  Our man Pynch sees this episode as another
> parable?

Yes, I pretty much agree with this. It is not just wit but alliteration (a
poetic/rhetorical trope, language, art) with which they subvert the
proceedings (as David M. notes) and so escape being the main course. And I
think it's fairly clear to Mexico that being the main course in real terms
is arrest and disappearance/death ("The prospects of being nabbed tonight
are good", thinks young Rog to himself at 710.4) such as was visited on that
other defector, Tantivy, much earlier on. In the prior Candy Drill and
Pudding Surprise episodes it's the good guys -- or, those lower down the
food chain anyway -- who are held hostage by the bad guys, and whereby
Authority, the established Order, is upheld, gastronomically so to speak.
But here it is that old anarchist rapscallion Seaman "Pig" Bodine, who --
correct me if I'm wrong -- makes an appearance in just about all of
Pynchon's novels (as himself or as one of his own forebears), who convinces
Roger to bite the bullet and meet the bad guys head on. Bodine's a deserter,
which means a "death sentence" (711.8), but he is undeterred ('under turd',
as shit-faced Jill might add) and fearless. I think Bodine's heroism is
another example of the Romantic streak in Pynchon's fiction, like that
racist Marvy's well-deserved neutering before.

Anyway, what I think is important, or a nice touch, or whatever, is that it
is the "last black butler" with whom the boys are allied as they make their
poetic escape into the night.

"And just at the other side of dawning, you can see a smile."

Welcome back, Max (like a breath of fresh air)

best