SLSL "TSR"

[jbor]

on 3/12/02 1:19 AM, Dave Meury at dmeury at lioninc.com wrote:

> I also found it odd that little Buttercup is never given a real name in
> the story.  Also, while I have never seen or read the play, HMS
> Pinafore, a summary tells me that it involves a case of mistaken
> identity and of class differences.  This seems promising but do the
> contents of the play "count"? or is it a stretch in relation to TSR.  If
> there is a connection, the fact that Levine sleeps with Buttercup hits a
> wrong note since she is an old woman in the play.
> 
> A couple of odds and ends:
> 
> I submit that the baseball cap is emblematic of boyhood.  I also think
> the swamp is an apt setting for the love scene in its significance as a
> symbol of both fecundity and death.

Yes, I think that's the sort of symbolism Pynchon is playing around with.
The hurricane killed people and caused havoc but the frogs are thriving.
Life ... _Life_ ... death ... the sexual "little death" etc. Irony,
self-consciousness, ambivalence, afterglow.

I don't think there's anything much more to the "little Buttercup" reference
(42-3) than the jokey one-upping and flirting going on between she and
Levine. Levine exaggerates that she has "saved him from death" by bringing
him sandwiches and coffee. She replies that "you don't look so bad", which
plays along with Levine's joke but has a flirtatious aspect to it as well.
Levine catches on and leers, jokes about her being a "cute" St. Bernard
(traditionally this breed of dog carried little casks of brandy around their
necks to sustain stranded travelers in the Swiss Alps). It's a pretty
obvious, pretty piss-poor crack. Still, she prolongs the conversation, he
asks her name. Saying "I'm called little Buttercup", she is making a
literary allusion which both suits what she is doing and upstages his St.
Bernard remark. He thinks she's thinking he won't even get the 'Pinafore'
reference (disagreeing slightly with Paul's take), and so he's a little bit
cut, while still showing that he gets the allusion. Rizzo laps it all up.


on 3/12/02 9:18 AM, Dave Meury at dmeury at lioninc.com wrote:

> Maybe, but she is also the swamp wench with an accent linking her with
> the least savory character presented in the story (Dugan).  While the
> degree of her "wickedness" may be debatable (immaturity is often callous
> and Levine, himself, is far from a beacon of compassion), her apparent
> insensitivity toward the victims of the hurricane dulls the luster of
> her golden heart.
> 
> I also reluctantly suggest that the speed of her sexual submission may
> have been perceived a little differently in 1958 when the story was
> first published than it is now, giving more of an emphasis to the swamp
> wench characterization.  (Don't hold me to that.  Just a thought.)
> 
> Interesting contrasts.
> 

I think that the accent links to an attitude as well. While the
generalisations about "Southern" behaviours and beliefs verge on
stereotyping, one very positive feature of Pynchon's literary style in 'TSR'
is the way that details, and especially small details of dialogue, are able
to carry much of the plot and thematic weight of the story.

It's little Buttercup who puts the hard word on Levine with the lewd
innuendo, asking him how he likes "plowing" (43). Up until then the repartee
between them had been pretty tame - non-sexual at least - and Rizzo
immediately picks up on the implicit contract for sex which the girl has
initiated. In terms of characterisation this exchange emphasises both that
Levine is still physically attractive to women, and that Buttercup is a bit
of a slut - a "swamp wench" indeed (though I think calling her "depraved"
might be a little too strong). Similarly, when she and Levine discuss the
damage caused by the hurricane (49), her grin and reply to Levine when he
asks her for clarification betray her racist/elitist attitudes. In using the
pronoun "them", Levine switches the subject from the the damage caused to
the town to the deaths of actual people. What Buttercup agrees to, fully
understanding what Levine is saying and brazenly unhesitant as far as I can
tell, is that it was "better" that hundreds of Creole residents were killed
than that any damage was caused to the college. The way Levine "tap[s] his
fingers on the table" subtly conveys his annoyance with her lack of
compassion and elitist sensibility.

best