MDDM Ch. 23 Summary, Notes

[jbor]

on 13/12/01 6:17 AM, Mark Wright AIA at mwaia at yahoo.com wrote:

> Howdy
> 
> --- jbor <jbor at bigpond.com> wrote:
>> Maire makes an impromptu anchovy pizza in order to cover a *faux pas*
>> and
>> maintain his anonymity. It is "arguably the first British pizza"
>> ever, and
>> all seem to enjoy eating "those pointed things". (236)
> 
> A while back y'all were debating the base vegetable of ketjap. This
> episode makes it clear, to me anywhay, that P is indeed expecting the
> reader to make the ketjap/catsup/ketchup connection, and that ketjap is
> tomato based. Just like the stuff labeled "Heinz 57".
> 
> I smiled rather broadly for several minutes, if I didn't quite laff out
> loud, at the way P developed this cheap and juvenile jest over a long
> span of many difficult chapters. The closure of this joke caps, for me,
> the first section of the book. From here the focus of the narrative
> shifts decisively to America, and it feels to me as though the whole
> narrative turns upon the silly fulcrum of the loathsome "First British
> Pizza". It is the Patriarch and Sire of a line of champion Vile Pizzas
> that have flourished and afflicted Britain right to the present day.
> 


Actually, I'd disagree. The description of the pizza ingredients - a fresh
"brown Batchloaf", spicy Malay "*ketjap*" from the Cape, brine-pickled
anchovies, and Stilton cheese - and the manner in which it is cooked (236)
make it seem an absolute delight. As such, it fits right in with the other
reversals of expectations which Pynchon typically indulges in (in these
chapters, for example, the friendship/alliance between Maire and Emerson,
the unexpected intellectuality and well-informedness of the pub rustics, and
the werewolf bit). Yum.

best