Benny's job

[jbor]

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>From: <lycidas2 at earthlink.net>

> but wouldn't it make sense that the military
> operation here is Nicaragua,

Or indeed Korea? Or American apprehensions of "otherness" in general?

> the Coco would not be a slur
> but a typical P allusion.

Wouldn't "cocodrilo" and "coco" simply be the words -- the diminutive
expressing familiarity, affection -- that Angel and the other Puerto Rican
boys were using, and which Benny has adopted? (cf. Cucarachito for Kook at
38.5) What seems to be being "elided" in the rush to turn the section into a
politico-historical fable is Angel & co's stated ethnicity.

Again, I think there's an enormous distance between saying that something is
what Pynchon intentionally "evokes" in his text and saying what something in
the text is reminiscent of for a particular reader. In terms of textual
interpretation the former approach is anti-pluralist and often leads into an
interpretative cul de sac imo, particularly where the so-called "allusions"
remain undeveloped and *uneditorialised* (within the text, or elsewhere) by
the author.

best