V.V.3--McClintic McClintoc

[O']

Dave Monroe wrote: 

I'd noticed that Pinocchio-esque vibe from McClintic Sphere
as well,
though I tend to read that bit in the V-Note (cf. Five Spot,
cf. V.) as
perhaps "sinister" only in the way that such scene might
seem to white
boys ('n' girls) in general, esp. at the time.   But given
that is is a
descent into the underworld of sorts, given the orphic
allusions that
abound in those Pynchonian texts, well ...And given that
McCS is one of TRPs few African-American characters, and
given the publication of V. during the efflorescence of the
Civil Rights movement, well ... am interested in how
Terrance will play that out, as
I think that "keep cool, but care" Not a Bad Piece of Advice
at All, is all, but ...





One of the few African American characters. Have any idea
why that is the case? Is he successful with Sphere? With
McAfee? What do you think of Gershom? 

On the surface what we see, is the white college boy can't
dig. Can't dig what? 

The consonance in the dueling, not so prearranged, not so
formal, not a combat between two men settling some point of
honor, but something far deeper, not a  struggle for
domination between two contending instruments, or persons,
or groups, or ideas, but a beautiful horny tug of war, a war
of music (there are at least 20 of these, all of them inside
of mandalas btw,  in GR alone), a balance that swings and
slings on a cold and windy knife fight February night in
NYC. This is the heart of Pynchon, a conflict that cannot be
resolved, that is not dialectic, a paradoxically sustained
tension. 

 The white college boy, like Slothrop, like Pynchon himself,
is a stereotype just like the evil yellow eyed bass player. 


Do see page 532 of the Oaklahoma City University Law Review,
where Joe Boulter discusses  stereotyping, in the portrayal
of Mr. McAfee, in Thomas Pynchon's short story, "the Secret
Integration", published, and we can say written too, just
after V. was published. 

A brief passage, but the whole essay should be read, it's
complicated and if you are not familiar with "The Secret
Integration" it may not mean that much to you but it goes to
the point I want to make and will continue arguing as we
read on through V.. 

Stereotyping in the portrayal of Mr. McAfee, demonstrates
that Pynchon's exploration of the limitations of the
children's fictional integration can be read as a commentary
on the limitations of all translations of black problems
into white discourse, including especially the translation
made by Pynchon in 'The Secret Integration.'  Mr. McAfee,
just as much as Carl, is "different" rather than "other." 
The implication is that African Americans are inevitably
misrepresented in fiction, just as their problems are
misrepresented in law.
"Children And Slaves in the West": 
Imagining Fraternity Among Outlaws In The Secret Integration 
 

Pynchon has a predilection for stock figures (did I mention
Dickens?). Some of Pynchon's characters have appropriate
allusion and depth of characterization but most of Pynchon's
characters are flat. But he uses a multiplication (Stecil,
V, Fausto, Slothrop, Greta, Frenesi, Zoyd, Katje, etc., an
amalgam, a shattering, a merging, all various forms of the
double and doppelgänger (Dickens, Conrad, Eliot,
Dostoyevsky). So this  flatness is not the traditional
flatness that critics once complained about. Stereotypes,
and V. is loaded with stereotypes,  are projected onto and
from, often ironically, the flat figures. What's more
important is that characters also embody the often ambiguous
interrelation of realistic descriptions and fantastic
elements, which of course drives the critics mad, because
these apparently flat figures that multiply also have an
ontological uncertainty (notice I didn't say indeterminacy
;-). The fantastic force, the machine is present in that
bar, on Sphere's face. He fights it off, but it will keep
coming at him, electronic, stochastic, zero and one, maybe
it's in his brain, in the molecule.