V.V. (14) Tristan's Blade

[Terrance]

What is being implied by P's sympathies? 

Sphere's sympathetic magic perhaps, but maybe not. That
magic is music, the jazz musician, the darling of Pynchon
perhaps, but maybe not. Certainly P shows little sympathy
for the Northern liberal routine, the rich kids, but then
again Sphere thinks to shove his *white ivory* alto up their
asses and he drives his fancy sports car, wearing the same
expensive wall street suit as Rachel's old man (a man who is
Jewish but is named by Pynchon as a  persecutor of Jews) up
to Harlem to whine to his Ruby, a girl in disguise
(disguises in V. = enfetishment), a prostitute, a hare all
the pigs (all the men in the novel that lust for Paola are
described as Pig-like, including Pig Bodine) are in search
of. In fact the novel opens with a search fro V and Paola.
Paola appreciates his kindness (this makes Sphere a very
Sympathetic figure, kindness being the highest virtue in
this novel), even if she can't read him (a plus?), but can
only feel his sympathetic music inside when they have sex.
Have sex? Well, she is a prostitute in a friendly rooming or
cat house and she is married, not to Sphere though, but well
this all gets very confusing with these two characters.
Perhaps if we look at the other young people getting
together or not getting it together we can determine where
P's sympathies lie if at all. I think this is one of the
most humorous chapters in the book, although chapter the
first is hilarious, but coming hard on the boot in the face
fascism and wounded world pessimism of the previous chapter
(I don't think Weissmann is comic relief or a bafoon or
tragic or pathetic and worthy of sympathy, but...) those Ps
and Qs had me in stitches, sutures, and relieved. 

see *Love In The Western World* by Denis De Rougemont

PS As De Rougemont says, its the conflict of two religions,
one I suspect, is  Roman Catholicism, but what I do know, I
only haven't been a RC Church in Glen Cove in years.