VV(18): Kimono

[Dave Monroe]

"And finally, the kimono, translucent and dyed
rainbowlike with sunbursts and concentric rings of
cerise, amethyst, gold and jungly green." (V., Ch. 14,
Sec. i., p. 397)

J. Kerry Grant, A Companion to V. (Athens: U of
Georgia P, 2001) again goes right to my immediate
sources here ...

"Dugdale sees this as the kimono of 'the suicidal
Madame Butterfly' (97), while Eddins claims that it
clearly links her with 'the congeries of iridescent
Vheissu images and thus with the inanimate' (Eddins
74-75)." (p. 174)

Citing ...

Dugdale, John.  Thomas Pynchon: Allusive Parables
   of Power.  New York: St. Martin's Press, 1990.

Eddins, Dwight.  The Gnostic Pynchon.
   Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1990.

1990 having been a hell of a year for Pynchoniana. 
But I'm reminded not only of the solar allusions
throughout the chapter ("sunbursts"), not only of the
"jungle" into which Melanie's mysterious father might
have disappeared ("jungly greens"), not only of the
alleged circularity of "gravity's rainbow" in a
different novel entirely ("concentric rings of ..."),
but also ...

1 After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened
in heaven: and the first voice which I heard was as it
were of a trumpet talking with me; which said, Come up
hither, and I will shew thee things which must be
hereafter. 

2 And immediately I was in the spirit: and, behold, a
throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne.

3 And he that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a
sardine stone: and there was a rainbow round about the
throne, in sight like unto an emerald.

Revelations 4:1-3 ...



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