NPPF: Notes Line 286/Line 347

[Jasper Fidget]

> From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On
> Behalf Of jbor
> 
> on 14/10/03 2:54 AM, Scott Badger wrote:
> 
> >> "(Small-fish gesture and wink)...(Pout and shrug)...(Traffic-stopper's
> >> palm)"
> >> Is this pantomime (a) put on for our benefit?
> 
> The main thing which struck me about this detailed account of the meeting
> between Oswin Bretwit and Gradus is: How would Kinbote know what happened?
> Bretwit "died under the knife" in hospital on the very next day, and
> Gradus
> wouldn't have mentioned the meeting to him, so ....
> 
> It's almost as if Kinbote *deliberately* includes these details which show
> the recount up as a fabulation (a bit like that wonderfully droll script
> of
> 'The Haunted Barn' he composes a little further ahead).
> 

I wondered too about all the details K supplies for Gradus.  He does say on
p. 299 that he'd had a jailhouse interview with Jack Grey, but then adds:
"perhaps even two interviews," making that claim suspicious too.

In the Bretwit scene Gradus is at first flat and free of much personality:
"'How interesting,' said Gradus noting it" (p. 178); then seems to adopt the
dialogue of a petty thug criminal, with lines like: "let me tell you
frankly", "I want to offer you a little arrangement", and "be nice to us and
we'll be nice to you"; as well as lots of similar hand gestures.  Almost
like Kinbote morphs Gradus into whatever context the scene implies for him.

Jasper