VLVL Takeshi

[jbor]

>>> If anything, the "genially" might offset the "malicious intent,"
>> 
>> Obviously. A "leer" is "a glance (esp. sideways) with sly, lascivious or
>> malign expression." (Oxford)
>> 
>> Takeshi meets Prairie, shakes her hand, and "leered genially".
> 
> 
> Not quite. As he **took** her hand he leered genially. DL's comments
> about keeping an eye on his feet are made **as** he took her hand.

No-one is disputing this, so I'm not sure why you've repeated it three times
now. The "as" doesn't imply a cause and effect relationship with DL's
comment; in fact, it indicates that her comment is simultaneous with
Takeshi's handshake and eye contact. And the comment does precede the
description on the page.

I'd say that "leered genially" is an oxymoron, and that the full context of
the meeting between Prairie and Takeshi needs to be taken into account. I
don't agree that DL's comment is advice to Prairie to watch out for
Takeshi's sex dance, and I don't agree that her statement is related to the
narrator's jokey reference to the way Takeshi "glided" across the airport
lobby. (Of course, that assertion was merely a furphy, a bait.)

I also don't agree that Prairie has to be a mind reader in order for us to
make sense of how Pynchon's narrative operates here. We're told (by a
narrator) that DL and Takeshi told Prairie these stories; we see Prairie
interrupting DL and Takeshi on a number of occasions and these interruptions
are constituted in the text as direct speech; and, on top of this,
throughout the chapter the characters' first person narration segues into
embellished third person narrative, a fairly standard realist device. It's
always useful to consider the different ways in which Pynchon articulates
and manipulates narrative discourse within his texts.

Prairie's interruption at 149.15 comes at the moment in Takeshi's narrative
when he's describing his mixed feelings as he's about to enter the brothel
as Brock's decoy. After Prairie's sarcastic remarks the narrator recounts
the circumstances of Takeshi's arrival the previous night and what happened
"[w]hen they were introduced next morning at breakfast": it's a flashback
("She'd finally got to meet ... "  = past perfect or pluperfect tense,
indicating past in the past). Thus, the conversation from 149.23-31 happened
that morning at breakfast, when they "were introduced". Then, there's a
transitional shift back to the current time of the Takeshi's narration:
"From then on" (i.e. from breakfast, when DL introduced Prairie to Takeshi)
he'd been adding "color commentary to DL's version". And, in fact, this has
been happening from 142.9.

best