VLVL Takeshi

[jbor]

>> I would submit that beginning on page 158 with Takeshi's attempts to
>> medicate away his despair with amphetamines, alcohol and barbituates,
>> that one must take the next couple of pages, up through "Next day,
>> feeling mysteriously better..." as only surreal at best.  For instance a
>> person may have brushed by Takeshi while he was on the pay phone with
>> Carmine and said "excuse me" which Takeshi translated as "Watch the
>> Paranoia, please."  The kid on the airplane may or may not have been
>> playing a video game called "Nookey" and Takeshi's ex-wife may or may not
>> have been on the television in the motel room

> Why dismiss only this section as hallucination? Takeshi's booze and speed
> habit is chronic (see eg. 142.25-8 and DL's comment at 100.27-8). How are
> these things any more "surreal" (i.e. far-fetched) than the giant Godzilla
> footprint episode, the invisible robot on the plane, or the "Vibrating Palm
> of Death"? These are portions of Takeshi's narration as well. And DL seems
> to be acting as a corroborating witness to the veracity of Takeshi's yarn.

Point being, there's nothing in the text which colours these events or this
portion of Takeshi's testimony as any less "real" or admissable than any
other section of it. The characters within the text don't question or refute
what he tells, and the external narrative elements (tone, third person
narration, the "as a matter of fact" flashback to his marriage to Michiko
Yomama on p. 159) don't frame it as being "surreal at best" (no more than
the rest of it). At 154.8 we're told that his "glibness" probably had its
"origins in the realm of the chemical", which refers to his fatalistic and
moralistic pronouncement at the top of the page. And it's the "suit-wearing
juvenile" on the plane who's paranoid about what Takeshi might do rather
than vice versa. Bizarre things just keep happening to Takeshi, who's pretty
much used to it by now, seems to be the point.

That said, I'm not sure who the "*gaijin*" on the plane who thinks Takeshi's
act is a candid camera advertising set-up or the woman at LAX in the "draped
white gown" who came over to him and "leaned her forearm on Takeshi's
shoulder" are meant to be or symbolise, and I'm not sure why we're told that
Takeshi glides across the airport a "centimeter or two above the actual
floor surface" (160). There are a couple of mentions of "otherwordly"
possibilities here (159.3-4), so I wonder if it might link back to the UFO
episode aboard the Kahuna airlines flight (63-6)? There are also leading
references throughout these few pages to it (Takeshi's experience, life in
general) being a tv commercial or children's picture book or sitcom or video
game scenario as well -- a simulacrum or simulation, in Baudrillardian
terms. Pynchon's text, as oln many occasions, teeters at an "interface"
between reality(-ies) and unreality(-ies), between human flesh and cartoon,
at a cusp between meaning (or socio-historical relevance) and absurdity.

best