MDDM Ch. 58 Young Nathe

[jbor]

I got the impression from the detailed narration of Nathe's exploits and
thoughts and the epistolary exchange between he and his friend Murray back
in Chs 46 & 47 that there was an amount of empathy in the characterisation.
That Nathe has now actively intervened (created a facsimile identity in
fact) in order to protect Gershom from the rednecks at Raleigh's billiard
room reminded me of the boys in 'The Secret Integration', Slothrop taking on
Marvy and Chiclitz in the Zone in _GR_, and a young journalist named Thomas
Pynchon writing 'A Journey Into the Mind of Watts'. The adjective "slothful"
was the additional hint I was referring to, but I admit that taken in
isolation it's quite tenuous. However, I could imagine how the younger
Pynchon, as he was first starting out on this epic narrative journey, riding
along vicariously with M & D's Party through the documents and sources as a
sort of literary "Camp-Factotum", might indeed have been perceived as more
"narrow and restless" by the "slothful" older author putting the finishing
touches to the manuscript. But it's probably a stretch.

I also think it conceivable that there are elements of authorial
identification with Timothy Tox, with Ethelmer (and 'Brae, to some extent),
and with Dixon, much moreso than with either Wicks or Mason. I'm not talking
about a direct biographical connection or "allusion", of course; it's more a
type of attitudinal correlation.

I haven't had time to check the notes and comments made during the previous
reading, so I'm not sure what was mooted re. this chapter back then.

best


> What is it in this text that suggests an allusion to Pynchon?
> 
> 
>> The description of "Young Nathe" as "more slothful than the narrow and
>> restless
>> Camp-Factotum of the summer previous" (573.25) hints further at an
>> identification between this character and the author himself.