MDDM Gershom's Intervention

[jbor]

on 4/7/02 1:25 AM, Doug Millison at millison at online-journalist.com wrote:

> I've said just about all I have to say re Pynchon's Washington, but I must
> add, that jbor's argument depends on arbitrarily assigning one  or two
> unidentified lines of dialogue to this or another character, in a scene
> that Pynchon seems to have set up in a way that makes it impossible to do
> so with any certainty -- well, that's certainly an interesting way to read
> the text, especially coming from somebody who has been so fierce in
> insisting that only what is specifically in the text might have meaning in
> such a discussion.

Just to sum up on my part, then, I'd counter that George Washington's
definitely in the text, and in the scene (whereas George W. Bush isn't, of
course), and so is Gershom (but not Sammy Davis Jr). In referring to these
two characters of Pynchon's I haven't been arbitrary, I've been very
precise. Both George and Gersh participate in the dialogue in Ch. 58, and
utterances are specifically attributed to each of them in the text.

Doug's interpretation of Pynchon's GW now seems to rely on the argument that
Pynchon intended the dialogue and George's presence, along with that of his
"man", Gershom, in the scene in Ch. 58, to be deliberately incomprehensible
and/or meaningless. As I think I said before, this argument is very weak.

Irrespective of this, I'm glad Doug did take the time to contest my
interpretation, and I thank him for doing so, because in undertaking closer
reading I was able to generate a substantial amount of additional textual
material to confirm and corroborate the general impression I had that the
depiction of George Washington in _M&D_ is a predominantly positive one.

On to Ch. 61.

best


> But that's OK, as an old journo once told me, "Never let
> the facts get in the way of the story."  And it is almost always
> interesting to see where the irresistable need to disagree  with something
> I've posted might lead.
> 
> I went to the Arizona State Fair once when I was in high school, and in the
> side show I watched a contortionist work, an older guy (about my age now,
> in fact, 50 or so) -- about the time he got himself all twisted up like a
> pretzel he looked right out into the audience, made eye contact with one
> after another person, and said, in a world-weary tone of voice, "It's a
> hell of a way to make a living, ain't it?"
>