NP: fox spotted at supreme court

[Bandwraith at aol.com]

In a message dated 1/17/02 12:21:38 PM, paul.mackin at verizon.net writes:


>>From the point of view of story structure it allows George Washington 
believably? to say
proclamation-shmocklamation and that he's getting meeshugginah. From the 
characterization
angle it's one approach to making the servant more than a mere mindless 
slave, like Twain
raised Jim above reader expections in Huckleberry Finn (the TV show said 
repeatedly),
although if Gershom were anything like a believable character in a story the 
above original
question wouldn't have needed asking.<< 

Agreed. Gershom is pretty absurd.

>>A perverse alternative occurs--Gershom might have
been styled a Cinque (chraismatic leader of the Symbionese Liberation Army) 
mouthing off
slogans about oppressed peoples everywhere  Would that have fit any 
appropriate allegorical
purposes?  Surely, since it's Pynchon, the question as to the significance of 
a
black/Jewish kabbalist refers first and foremost to the issue of underlying 
meaning.  Or
meanings plural.
There must be plenty to go around. All the usual suspects.<<

Yes, that's pretty much the way I read it, as well. Like the LED character,
Pynchon is almost delivering "a Provocation" the readers "equivalent of
a slap from a glove."

Like Washington and those plates, I think we should 'dig' some of those
double and triple meanings up. Scholarship, speculation, paranoia, 
tap-room wit-this is America, after all, and hey... wasn't it those 
displaced (and displacing) Swedes that came up with smorgasbord?

 






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Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 12:24:50 -0500
From: Paul Mackin <paul.mackin at verizon.net>
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