LPPM MMV "Siegel"
Paul Nightingale
isread at btopenworld.com
Thu Aug 12 00:26:34 CDT 2004
The story opens with Siegel juxtaposed to tourists at the Monument. He
both isn't but is a tourist, since the rest of the story sees him
positioned as a kind of sightseer at the party: uncommitted, he
eventually leaves as though he'd never been there (he fails to
intervene, his departure means he won't be included in the statistical
description of events ... all of which confirms the impression offered
by his low-key arrival). His observations at the party are juxtaposed to
Debby's "list ... of unofficial statistics": one kind of tourism, so to
speak, against another.
As Siegel talks with Lucy and Debbie the party is elsewhere; Lucy's
story briefly forces the narrative away from Siegel's pov (which in turn
pre-echoes his subsequent departure). Chris' thoughts yesterday on "Zeit
the doctor" remind us of the opening of VL, which also juxtaposes linear
time to cyclical time, and which also features a putative protagonist
somewhat out-of-synch with the narrative. Like Siegel, Irving Loon is
out-of-place at the party.
If then the in-joke (and it must be confined to a few people 'in the
know') sees Pynchon name Siegel after a personal friend, the stratagem
allows him to insert himself as named author (conventionally, the coded
source of all meaning) in the form of Grossmann (who of course has read
a lot of Eliot): within the narrative, the roommate's appearance,
conjured up by Siegel's memory, is juxtaposed to Lucy's
discourse/monologue. Not least, Grossmann's inability to admit to
"civilisation outside of Cook County" recalls Pynchon's comments in the
SL Intro regarding his parochialism (?) as a writer: his Bad Ear (which
in fact works well with Harvey in MMIV) as well as Baedekerised
history-as-tourism. In both MMIV and the SL Intro Pynchon poses the
question of authorship: how do I, here, get to be there?
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