VLVL chpt. 7, 93-97

[Michael Joseph]

VL focalizes the action from Ralph Wayvone's perspective.

Gelsomina's marriage to Dominic "the movie executive" recollects marriage
of Frederico Fellini to the co-star of La Strada, Giuletta Masina. (She
plays gelsomina in La Strada.)

Dominic "had flown in the night before from Indonesia" (93). Indonesia, or
as it was known in the eighteenth century, The East Indies, was the site
from which the peoples who settled the Tahitian islands were thought to
migrate, therefore, Indonesia might loosely be construed as another Tahiti
(92). Perhaps, the "gigantic animal," whose footprint first appears on
p. 142, is related in some way to Dominic's "monster movie" (93). Does the
monster originate in paradise? (Is the "shadowy conglomerate" (142)
related in some way to Ralph Sr.'s "corporation," or, rather, the
"coporation that owned them"? (93).)

In any case, VL relates Dominic with a monster, and Gelsomina with beauty,
suggesting a marriage of beauty and the beast; not coincidentally, Zampano
and Gelsomina are represented as a type of 'beauty and the beast' in "La
Strada." Perhaps the tragedy of this version of the tale (the murder of
the clown), suggests dramatic foreshadowing in VL--not necessarily within
the narrative of Gelsomina and Dominic, who may (and do) become
incidental, but for another, more central, 'beauty and the beast' couple,
Brock and Frenesi, and their "third," Weed Atman?

"1961 Brunello di Montalcino" (94)

Another reference to the Medicis and Italian Renaissance.

"The earliest settlements of Montalcino - the name first appears in a
document of 814 A.D. - grew up under the feudal tutelage of the monks.
They spread in the communal period, into a municipality, acquiring
considerable importance, both political and military, owing to their
strategic position on the old Francigena Way. As a result they were in
conflict with Siena from the end of the 12th century for over seventy
years. During this period, sieges and wars alternated with moments of
fragile peace and pacts were broken at the slightest provocation.

The battle of Montaperti (1260) gave the final victory to the Sienese, who
planned to destroy Montalcino, but a few years later the situation changed
once again; the Ghibellines were thrown out of Siena and the people of
Montalcino signed a treaty of alliance with the Guelfs which guaranteed
them substantial autonomy. In 1361, after an attempted rebellion the
people of Montalcino were accorded Sienese citizenship. This was followed
by a period of relative peace, during which their activities - pottery,
tannery and leatherwork as well as the working of wool, wood and iron,
flourished. The economic ties with Siena strengthened and, in 1404 they
acquired from Siena the right to levy taxes and in the following years, a
whole series of fiscal exemptions which favoured economic development. In
1462 Pius II granted Montalcino the state of city and a bishop's seat.
Then once again: war. In 1526 and in 1553 the town was besieged, but was
able to resist thanks to the efforts of the population.

>From 1555 to the 31st July 1559 the last free Italian state, the Republic
of Siena, retired to Montalcino. The annexation to the medici state did
not provoke any great upheaval for Montalcino which maintained its
importance as a productive and commercial centre. During the second half
of the 17th century there were some 140 shop-owners and artisans, the
city's main activities were tannery and shoe-making."

http://www.itwg.com/en_tos07.asp


Reception food includes "tournedos Rossini" (94)

"The invention of the famous Tournedos Rossini has become a legend. It is
said to have occurred at the Caf Anglais in Paris. The story goes that
Rossini insisted upon overseeing the preparation of his meal and obliged
the chef to prepare it in front of him in the dining-room next to his
table. When the chef finally objected to this constant interference, the
Maestro replied, "Et alors, tournez le dos." or "So, turn your back." And
that is how this savoury dish got its name!

There are other versions as to how the Tournedos got its name, but it is
true that Rossini gave his to many gastronomic preparations. Great chefs
dedicated many dishes to him," including a dish for Figaro, the hero in
his Il Barbiere di Siviglia, and of course in Mozart's Le Nozze Di Figaro.
Thus, perhaps the dish suggests either the happy marriage of Figaro and
Susannah.

http://www.culturekiosque.com/opera/features/ra1feat1.htm


"Gino Baglione and the Paisans" = Gino Baloney... Billy as obvious fake.
Billy is spared stranglation by Two-Ton Carmine Torpidini, a cartoonish
bruiser, when Gelsomina "to protect her wedding from sucy possible unlucky
omens as blood on the wedding cake" (97) finds an Italian Wedding Fake
Book. Earlier in the text, it was Zoyd who accessed "a thick tattered fake
book full of Hawaiian tunes" (62) in order to ease his gig aboard Kahuna
Airlines. (I note that Hawaii is yet one more Tahiti, paradisal island,
although it well proves not to be for Zoyd, a mere skraelling.)

Fake book--("book or collection of pages containing information about
songs, especially their lyrics, melodies, and chord progressions, used by
musicians as a substitute for standard sheet music or as a framework for
improvisation" Amer. Herit. Dict. A fake book is literally an imaginary
construct.

"Deluze & Guattari" (97): Gille Deleuze and Felix Guattari are French
postmodern theorists, not compilers of the Italian Wedding Fake Book. See
http://www.uta.edu/english/apt/d&g/d&gweb.html.

The ironies: The fake book is, in fact, a fake book--a book made up by
Pynchon (within a book made up ... ): by ascribing manifestly incredible
authorship to very well-known lit. theorists, VL boldly highlights its own
fakeness; (is VL therefore proclaiming, loudly, its own status as a work
of fiction?).

This is something of a paradox: since VL is fake how can we accept that
the THE ITALIAN WEDDING FAKE BOOK is, in fact, fake? We have no authority
for our supposition, our supposition stands on its own.

In "The Postmodern Turn, Ihab Hassan describes the "catena" of
"immanences"  as "the capacity of mind to generalize itself in symbols,
intervene more and more into nature, act upon itself through its own
abstractions and so become, increasingly, immediately, its own
environment. If a fake book allows a musician structure within which to
improvise, a pomo fake book (like VL?) allows a reader the same freedom.

Final irony here: It is a fake book and the freedoms it engenders that
saves him from inertia in the form of Torpidini and enables Billy and the
Vomitones to perform the most traditional of music for the most
conventional of occasions. But, while the actualization of the comedic
marriage is for the Wayvones a teleology, an inevitable fact of history,
ordained by tradition, for Billy, and for us, it is a wholly imaginary
reality. (See for ex. Borges's Don Quixote.)

Pynchon on authorship--meaning, plotting, etc.-- in a lighter mode?
"'Actually,' Isaiah began, 'I'm a percussion person, my job is to take
hard knocks and rude surprises, line 'em up in a row in some way folks can
dance to, 's all I do, rilly, but as a connoisseur and from the story your
face seems to tell a recipient of some of Life's hard knocks yourself, you
can see the present crisis may not be worth emotional investment on the
scale you contemplate, not to mention the bruises on Gino aka Billy here's
neck, which will have him wearing bandannas for weeks, with crossover
implications musically and also generating with numerous ol' ladies hickey
suspicions you can well imagine, no, far from bein' a hard knock here,
why, it's not even a brushstoke on Life's top cymbal, come on! Eh!' (97)



Michael