SLSL: Flange and Cindy

[jbor]

on 8/1/03 3:17 AM, The Great Quail at quail at libyrinth.com wrote:

> Indeed, there's little to justify believing that Flange is willing to take
> responsibility for much of anything. When he muses, "Maybe if we had had
> kids...." there's no real weight to the thought, as if children were
> additional counters to measure their adult relationship, like stereos,
> gainful employment, and famous paintings. The heat is gone from their
> marriage, 

I think Pynchon picks up and reworks this theme a little in Roony and
Mafia's failed marriage in _V._ too:

      Now Winsome had been brought up on the white Protestant sentiments
    of magazines like The Family Circle. One of the frequent laws he
    encountered there was the one about how children sanctify a marriage.
                                                        (p. 126)

Cindy, with her Mondrians and her attitude, is a bit like Mafia and her
abstractions. Roony, likewise, is incurably irresponsible.

best

> which is natural after seven years, but it has failed to move to
> the next level of commitment. There's a definite poignancy in the passages
> where he recalls their younger days of love; back in the day when their new
> home was exciting and fecund, and they sang Noel Coward songs to each other.
> But one gets the impression Cindy was navigating towards something greater,
> whereas Flange was just dropping anchor for awhile.

[...]

best