MMiV The Allusive Mr. P. Pt 2

[John Bailey]

“They faced each other like slightly flawed mirror images…and the word 
Doppelganger had just floated into his mind…” I think there’s a Joseph 
Conrad reference here, whether it can be pointed towards his “The Secret 
Sharer” or, equally likely, to the sorts of commentary which surround so 
much of Conrad’s work in general (reading the doppelganger as a trope in 
Heart of Darkness, The Double Agent, etc). Also, Rachel’s eyes “aren’t 
mirror images but both slant the same way”, a nice Pynchonian idea, that.

“Dada exhibit in Paris on Christmas eve, 1919” I can’t find any reference to 
this anywhere, and suspect it might be fudged historical fact to support a 
potent image Pynchon may have liked.

“Genie. Bottle. Century after century, until Siegel, fisher of souls, pulls 
the cork.” The genie/bottle reference should be obvious but the Fisher of 
Souls thing can go either way: as the devil (“I trust, young man, that 
neither idleness nor licentious pleasure . … the chief baits with which the 
great Fisher of souls conceals his hooks, are the causes of your declining 
the career to which I would incite you.”—Sir W. Scott: The Monastery) or as 
Jesus (“A Fisher am I of souls who bear witness to Life. A Poor Fisher am I 
who calls to the souls, collects them together and gives them instruction.” 
) I guess this has some interesting resonances later in the story: is Siegel 
(or at least the confessor position he inherits) the cause of the degraded 
nature of the party or its salvation?

“‘The outside,” Lupsecu said, “Out of the jungle.”…Ten seconds later the 
door opened again and Lupescu stuck his head in and winked. “Mistah Kurtz – 
he dead,” he announced owlishly and disappeared.” There it is, Heart of 
Darkness fans, as clear as day. The influence of HOD on Pynchon’s work is 
often noted so it’s good to have some solid background material like this 
which proves that the themes of that novel are important enough for P to 
structure a whole story around them.

“‘Darling,” Rachel laughed, “stop acting like a war flick…” Is it me, or 
does Rachel’s voice in this story sound like a remarkably Hollywood one in 
itself? Most especially when she utters lines like “I wanted to tell you, 
Sally’s brother-in-law’s sister, a winsome little brat of fourteen, just 
blew into town from some girls’ school in Virginia….” Now, nested clauses 
like that “a winsome little…” one are common as dust in Pynchon’s writings, 
but hardly ‘realist’ in the way Pynchon seems to have at least been trying 
to achieve at this point. To me, it makes most sense in a Hollywood 
1930s-40s flick, probably in an Eastern US accent, a Katherine Hepburn kind 
of thing. Or am I wrong?

“In his suddenly amiable state it seemed to Siegel that this account of the 
young fellow named Cheever who had an affair with a Beaver took on Deeper 
Human Significance, was gilded with a certain transcendental light which 
reminded him of that final trio from Faust…” Who is this guy? If you’d like 
the Fake Book version of the Charles Gounod ditty, try 
http://www.cleverjoe.com/book_classical_fake_book.html. It’s 
‘spine-tingling’.

“He would have cracked sooner or later. He was going native.” And more…once 
again referring to HOD.

“He remembered a Peter Arno cartoon in the New Yorker…” Tall, urbane and 
handsome, Curtis Arnoux Peters was the spitting image of the quintessential 
jazz-age playboy when he sold his first drawing to the fledgling New Yorker 
magazine in 1925. For the next 43 years, Arno's cartoons defined the wit and 
sophistication of America's leading showcase of graphic and literary talent. 
A self-taught draftsman, Arno's bold watercolor compositions captured the 
world of speakeasies, flappers, society dames, drunks and phonies. Among the 
many book collections of Arno's work are the best-selling Man in the Shower 
(1945), named after one of the artist's most memorable cartoons from the 
pages of the New Yorker. (http://cartoon.org/fame.htm#Arno) Can’t find any 
particularly notable examples of his work, though P-listers might already be 
familiar with his, well, familiar style.




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