"Small Rain"

[Dave Meury]

>>in the aftermath of the hurricane is just like the "little death" (*la
petite morte* - orgasm) which he and Buttercup experience "[i]n the
midst of great death" (50-51). Each is a sort of
sensual/spiritual/mystical epiphenomenon or metamorphosis, but
self-consciously and even perhaps ambivalently so.<<

>>I'm not so sure that Levine is alive enough to experience death,
either large or small. He seems to be hovering somewhere between life
and death. There is some ambiguity about his status which reminds me of
the confusion of the disciples over whether Lazarus is dead or only
sleeping.<<

Ambivalence and ambiguity -- now *there* are two fuzzy critters Pynchon
knows well.  It's that poetic tension they create that helps to vitalize
his fiction.