SLSL "TSR" some notes & questions

[pynchonoid]

(page numbers from Little, Brown hardcover, 1984)


Fort Roach, Louisiana (27) -- fictional name; Levine
may love the Army life, but the author would appear to
have a different response to the military experience,
judging from the name he gives this place

"back around mid-July of '57"  (27) --  The historical
fact of Hurricane Audrey can establish a precise date,
but Pynchon keeps it fuzzy:  "mid-July" is already
vague, "back around" makes it more so.  Why?



Pynchon puts together the sort of ethnic
soup/not-quite-melting-pot familiar in American movies
of the 40s and 50s that  take place in a military
setting:
-Levine the New York Jew
-Dugan the Virginia racist/Nazi
-Capucci,  Italian?
-Rizzo,  Italian? "the company intellectual"
-Baxter,  "the little blond-haired farm kid from
Pennsylvania"
-Lt. Pierce the MIT grad
-the out-of-touch First Sergeant (this goes a bit
against type, as the Top Sergeant is the person who
actually runs the company, the Company Commander
usually being the one out of touch -- at least in my
own personal experience of the US Army; the adage is
"Sergeants run the army" 
&etc.
Pynchon doesn't hype it up too much,  though, despite
this colorful cast of characters; the story stays
pretty low key, imo,  considering that a hurricane
plays such a huge role, the story lacks stormy
emotions or actions; I don't read the sort of soap
opera/sitcom tonality that characterizes those films
and TV programs derived from them. 


"What I mean is something like a closed circuit.
Everybody on the same frequency. After awhile you
forget about the rest of the spectrum and start
believing thta this is the only frequency that counts
or is real. While outside, all up and down the land,
there are these wonderful colors and x-rays and
ultraviolets going on"  (42)  Rizzo picks up on the
"circuit" image in the following paragraph,  Baxter on
the next page. 
In P's first story, a high-tech (electronic) trope,
the first of many to follow in later works, leading
to, surprise, what sounds like a rainbow.  Anybody
want to take a stab at interpreting Levine's speech 
in light of the rest of the story?

"sheer momentum"  p. 48 another term from physics

"debating with other Wandering Jews the essential
problems of identity -- not of the self so much as an
identity of place and what right you really had to be
anyplace" (49)  post-War reference to the displaced
(and murdered) Jews of WWII?   "Back?"  (51), Levine
doesn't know where he is -- adrift, rootless,  like
the Wandering Jews.


-Doug








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