VLVL2 (3) A Finesi Romance #1

[jbor]

>> Paul N's elaborate critique of those
>> Sylvester
>> and Tweety cartoons, with all that stuff about Granny and the cage
> (what
>> about the bulldog, Buster wasn't it?), well-written and entertaining
> as it
>> was, had little to do with Pynchon's text.

on 13/8/03 4:39 PM, Paul Nightingale at isread at btopenworld.com wrote:

> So I'm guessing, what, C-?

Go on. You're being too hard on yourself.

I was actually being serious. As rebuttals go ("And those readers
tempted to ignore ... yada yada"), yours was intelligently-written,
credible-sounding, and easy enough to read. It was a nice try.

But, seriously, how likely is it, seeing as Zoyd instantly recognises
Hector's "outlaw hat and cop sideburns", and Van Meter has just seen Scott
Oof heading for the hills and has himself dashed to the front door all
worried to see what's up, that Van Meter would then mistake Hector for a
drug dealer? I think the 'Babies of Wackiness' guys are right on the mark
with what's going down in that exchange:

    p. 23 "What I'm really here about..." This is an *old*
    "head" joke. ["Head" = sixties slang for weed-head, or
    "soft" drug-user.] The cop raps at the door and says
    "I'm here about drugs," and the doper says, "Thank God!
    We're all out!" It's right up there with the one where
    the cop says, "Your papers, please!" and the head whips
    out his Zig-Zags.

http://www.mindspring.com/~shadow88/chapter3.htm

And your critical interpretation of the Sylvester and Tweety series was
interesting enough in and of itself, of course, but it's that there is no
mention of cages or Granny in Pynchon's text, is the point. The conspicuous
and surprising element in the *text's* allusion to the cartoon duo is the
notion that it was a "romance", surely. This is *Pynchon's* idiosyncratic
take on that long-running, ostensibly predatory, though ever-unconsummated
rivalry, and thus it relates also to the relationship between Hector and
Zoyd (extending the "virginity" metaphor.) I suppose you could argue that
it's mere facetiousness on the narrator's part, but it does seem to
contribute to an overall picture of the relationship which has been and
continues to be built up consistently throughout the text.

The other thing to note is that it's not just the characters making all
these tv allusions; they've been imbedded into the detached (i.e. third
person) narration by Pynchon as well.

best

>> More often than not Tweety was
>> out of the cage when the actual chaser and "chasee" stuff was
> happening,
> 
> Obviously, if he's being chased.  But in or out of the cage doesn't
> really matter. It's always 'there' (his failure to fly isn't the result
> of Granny's home cooking). And the hegemonic illusion I described is, of
> course, dependent on a 'free' subject, for whom the cage is 'home'.
> 
>> which is Pynchon's referent in the chapter. And I think Granny only
> ever
>> appeared in a handful of episodes.
>> 
> 
> Does it matter how many episodes? Such repetitive narratives have a
> cumulative effect, one that is less dependent on such number-crunching.
> Nothing you've said here invalidates my reading. Must try harder.
> 
> 
>