VLVL2: Pisks Privileged?

[Terrance]

Paul wrote 

>Pynchon, it seems to me, gives the various and sundry characters and
>  goings-on just enough similarity to our memory of the actual period to
>  catch our notice (e.g., the details that Terrance notices). However
>  everything must be distorted into something considerably stranger and
>  more irrational than mere real life. His particular writing talent
>  requires this. He needs the bizarre and inexplicable to give full play
>  to his talent. Thus the revolutionary youths, though very childish in
>  some ways and often spouting utter nonsense, at times have reflections
>  that may appear more involved that anything we would normally expect
>  from twenty somethings.  

Yeah, one of things P does it to flesh his flat characters out with
parodic details he expects his readers to catch. For example, Eliot X =
(Malcolm (Little)  X). But Malcolm X didn't wear a Black Panther Uniform
and Eliot X does. And so on. Another P technique involves the fantastic,
bizarre, surreal, like Rex having sex with his car. Another technique
involves the drugged or bombed out mind narrative. There are lots of
others. All may be considered standard elements of Satire. It's all part
of the game. The game I like is the parody game. Pynchon expects that
some readers will catch him at it -- Malcolm X in GR, Graves in V. 


 I think Takeshi is modeled after Fanny, the Yurok "doctor" in Erikson's
book.