Chapter 45: The Duck Strikes Beak

[jbor]

on 5/4/02 2:46 PM, John Bailey at johnbonbailey at hotmail.com wrote:

> The Duck routs 
> a great army of Indians. The Duck levels a Mountain west of here. In a
> single afternoon the Duck, with her Beak, has plow’d ev’ry field in the
> County, at the same time harrowing with her Tail. That Duck!’

A little bit _Duck Dodgers of the 24 1/2th Century_, a little bit Johnny
Appleseed, a little bit _Blazing Saddles_, a little bit, well ... silly.

But I guess that's the point, as well as to show that the superstitions and
myths of "civilised", "rational", "self-possessed" European-American men are
just as solipsistic and ridiculous as those of any other "backward" culture.
This (brief) bit about how the duck's legend grows, and how "she" pilfers
Mason's hat is amusing. By contrast, that (long) story about the duck in
Armand's tale a few chapters back exemplified one of the least satisfying
aspects of Pynchon's fiction (imo), though some of the reasons behind such
digressions are probably those you diagnose: the high culture/low culture
switching, the otherworldly possibilities, admiration for the "Badass" etc.

best

> Firstly, it would seem as if the Duck is here joining the ranks of the
> Badasses, the larger-than-life legendary lawbreakers whom Pynchon describes
> elsewhere as fulfilling a certain function in popular myth. She may not be
> Big in size, but she’s growing in stature. A quick comment: note that it’s
> ‘all up and down the Line’ that she’s gathering this renown. I didn’t really
> notice this point at first, and just unconsciously substituted ‘in the
> surrounding region,’ but it’s interesting to consider how the line is linked
> to this spontaneous myth-generation. What is it about the Line which
> influences the process? At this point the Line has only just begun; is only
> a dozen or so miles long. This link between the Line and the Duck becomes
> more powerful, but the nature (or perhaps the point) of this connection
> eludes me.
> 
> The connection between the passage above and superhero narratives seem
> obvious to me, at least, although I wouldn’t limit it to superheroes. The
> Duck is part of a much broader cultural process, which would probably
> include countless folk heroes. The second paragraph of the chapter goes on
> to attribute to the Duck a related but somewhat different role, that of the
> Gremlin or Faery or whatever pops your cork, taking the blame for personal
> ‘disaster, general stupidity and blind luck.’ Everyone has a story about the
> Duck, it seems, though little proof of the encounter. She’s always the one
> that got away.

snip