V.V.(15): Children

[Paul Mackin]

"It is my conviction that no child--none, at least, who is mentally sound,
still less one who is mentally gifted--can avoid being occupied with sexual
problems in the years before puberty."
       --Sigmund Freud

----- Original Message -----
From: "Michel Ryckx" <michel.ryckx at freebel.net>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2001 7:20 AM
Subject: V.V.(15): Children


> 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.
>
>
>
>