TSI, Notes 2--Lothrop Stoddard

[S.R. Prozak]

> > I had never heard of this guy, but it seems very likely that we have a
> > new candidate, or, at least, an additional one, for the origin of the
> > name Slothrop.  It certainly wouldn't be beyond Pynchon to have used
> > either or both sources for inspiration.  I'm sure we'll all be looking
> > into the possibilities.
> >
> 
>          this also throws a new light on GR's roseland ballroom scene:
> 
>   "slothrop can't even see his own white face. (...) upstairs in the men's room 
>  at the roseland ballroom he swoons kneeling over a toilet bowl, vomiting beer, 
> hamburgers, homefries, chef's salad with french dressing, half a bottle of 
>  moxie, after-dinner mints, a clark bar, a pound of salted peanuts, and the 
>  cherry from some radcliffe girl's old fashioned. (...) red, the negro   
>   shoeshine boy, waits by his dusty leather seat. the negroes all over wasted 
>    roxbury wait. (...) if slothrop follows that harp down the toilet it'll have 
>     to be headfirst, which is not so good, cause it leaves his ass up in the air 
>      helpless, and with negroes around that's just what a fella doesn't want, 
>       his face down in some fetid unknown darkness and brown fingers, strong and 
>        sure, all at once (...) comes the sound of a whole dark gang of awful 
>         negroes come yelling happily into the white men's room (...) jeepers 
>          slothrop, what a position for you to be in!" (pp. 62ff)

It'd be a shame if Pynchon were that one-dimensional :)

Throw him on the propaganda pile, and move on to the real art.



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