SLSL Lardass'es Gambit ("A Game of Chess" or S&M)

[William Zantzinger]

"Levine knew this gambit." SR.29.27


Levine is introduced as inert figure. He is sluggish
in action,  lethargic, inactive. 

He's not the ordinary soldier on base because he
actually likes Fort Roach. 

But why? 
He doesn't seem to like change and Levine has "gone
native." 

 Gone Native is an expression Pynchon uses early and
often. It's Conrad's phrase (HD), but in this case, it
refers to Lardass Levine's having gone native in the
American South on a military base. Lavine, a tall,
educated, Jewish, Bronx native who now prefers white
lightning mixed with whatever comes out of the Coke
machine to Scotch on the rocks (still a favorite in
the Bronx). He has given up his Bronx accent (Colin
Powel, a military "lifer" still has a Bronx accent)
for a Southern drawl.  He listens to hillbilly music
instead of Jazz. He has given up the culturally
vibrant jungle lands of NYC for a Waste Land in
Louisiana. He's given up studying at City to read
whore books. He's gotten fat and flabby and his fat
ass  as earned him the nickname "Lardass". He lays
around in a hammock smoking, yawning, reading a soft
porn novel. For more than a year now he has been in
the same bunk, in the same company, in the same
battalion, same fort, same state, and he likes it. 

He's waiting for his leave. But he may not get it.
Levine suspects that his leave is being held up
because Levine has been getting into some trouble.
He's been locked up. His last summary dealing was just
a couple of weeks ago. 

Why does Levine like it at Fort Roach? Does he like
being punished? Is there a little S&M thing going on
here? Levine is a smart Jewish kid from the Bronx, he
attended City. His company clerk, a draftee who busted
out of UV is a sadistic anti-Semite. 

"At the start of the winter came the permanent rain
and with the rain came the cholera. But it was checked
and in the end only seven thousand died of it in the
army," 

--Farewell to Arms 








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