VLVL Takeshi

[jbor]

on 29/11/03 3:12 AM, Terrance wrote:

> The joke:  "Just keep an eye on his feet, you'll be fine." VL page 149

I read this in a martial arts context, as DL's instruction to Prairie to
watch out for his karate kicks or something.

The line in the airport scene isn't DL talking, it's a detached narrator
joking about how "high" Takeshi was (160.13-14).

> Prairie is swift, but she's so hungry for the story that she's willing
> to swallow some  big fish on the line.

Don't know about that. Her interruptions show her as sceptical (eg. 141,
149, 151) just like she was earlier with Zoyd and at Ralph's.

> How about YOU? Hungry? Here, have
> some jellied bologna. Some rubber scampi?

Or a smiling baby Jesus.

I suppose one could just pretend that those parts of Pynchon's texts he or
she doesn't like or doesn't understand or doesn't agree with derive from
some drugged-out narrator and dismiss their significance that way, but that
seems like a cop-out to me.

best