MDDM Ch. 72 Dixon and the slave driver

[Doug Millison]

At 10:59 AM -0700 8/23/02, s~Z wrote:
>Not really. In the slave-driver scene the description of "Striking wildly
>with the whip is the visual image given as context for the italicized
>'fuck'ds.' I'm not adding that visualization.

That's the slave-driving "Striking ev'rywhere with the Whip" (698), not
Dixon (as you note later in your message).


 >It is in the text. The phrase
>"You broke my Tooth!" occurs immediately after Dixon raises the Whip and
>says "Turn around. I'll guess *you've* never felt this," not immediately
>after the fist placement. Thus, reading the 'youve' as an utterance
>evidencing a whiplash which broke a tooth is not a stretch at all.

It seems a stretch to me.


>In both
>cases (slavedriver & Dixon), description of action involving the whip is
>followed by verbalizations using italics.


"action", yes, but striking with the whip is explicit only for the
slave-driver, as Pynchon writes this sequence of events.

>Reading Dixon's usage of the Whip
>and italicized 'you'ves' through the lens of the passage describing the
>slavedriver's usage of the Whip and italicized 'fuck'ds' is perfectly
>consistent with the text, perfectly consistent with the historical record,
>and perfectly consistent with Dixon's character.

Perfectly understood.  But, I beg to differ.


>Your reading requires an interpretation of the fist placement phrase that I
>really do not buy,

Slave-driver hitting Dixon's fist is in the text, but Dixon hitting
slave-driver with whip does not appear.  A reader is free to add it, of
course.


>and once you allow that Dixon hit the guy, reading the
>rest of the passage as an artistic rendition of the historical whiplashing
>is no stretch at all.

OK, as long as you're willing to stray from what P actually wrote, no
problemo...

Visualizing P-list peas,


Doug Millison
http://dougday.blogspot.com/
http://pynchonoid.blogspot.com/
http://www.Online-Journalist.com