V.V.(15): Children

[Michel Ryckx]

The astonishing role children play in this chapter.  In mr. Pynchon's works, they never play in all
innocence as we assume children often do (except for Snow-Balls making Arcs in a different Novel).

At random from chapter 11:
325.3-4: 'All our babies have had one father, the war; one mother, Malta her women.'
331, last r.: '[...]the kids themselves were all "in" the secret.'
338.15-16: 'There's a certain fondness for the Manichaean common to all children.'

And of course, they all knew about the Bad Priest, and end up in disassembling her at the end of
this chapter.

We're used to think our children possess a certain innocence; or we think they're a tabula rasa
which we can write on.  Someone should look into this; one can write a book on the role of children
in 'Gravity's Rainbow'.

Hard to believe this chapter was written by a boy in his twenties.

Michel.