Is Pynchon antirationalist? (part 5)

[o j m]

continued...
         Fuming with the kind of rage that only comes when one realizes 
that one has been used--an anger informed by a great indignance--Roger 
searches out Pointsman. He barges into Twelfth House demanding to see 
Pointsman. The secretaries attempt to fend him off, and the method they use 
is important. They try to keep him from Pointsman by appealing to his sense 
of propriety. “You are ma-king a spec-tacle of your-self, young man” (632). 
Roger proceeds to systematically confound this discourse of the proper, 
playing (like Sakall in “Doper’s Greed”) word games, making jokes
though in 
this case the reaction to the discourse of Reason is motivated by anger, 
and so instead of the laughter of Sakall, we find Roger dismissing outright 
the absurdity of the requests to return to proper behavior. After breaking 
a pair of glasses and terrifying Géza Rózsavölgyi and a Miss 
Müller-Hochleben with his “barbaric” behavior, he learns that Pointsman is 
in a meeting in Mossmoon’s office. He forces his way in and, well, 
continues on with his “irrational” behavior, jumping onto the boardroom 
table, screaming rather maniacally. “Roger has unbuttoned his fly, taken 
his cock out, and is now busy pissing on he shiny table, the papers, in the 
ashtrays and pretty soon on these poker-faced men themselves, who, although 
executive material all right, men of hair-trigger minds, are still not 
quite willing to admit that this is happening, you know, in any world that 
really touches, at too many points, the one they’re accustomed to
” (636). 
Roger acts the only sensible way possible: he refuses to enter into Their 
logical discourse. Fuck your rules, to hell with your protocol, your 
goddamned conventions for behavior, Roger seems to be saying, all that your 
manners accomplish is securing your safety. Take this “propriety” of yours 
and shove it. Perhaps this should trigger memories of a certain Mr. 
Rumsfeld declaring a year ago that he welcomes any and all critical 
discussions of the debacle in Iraq, as long as they are conducted in polite 
terms, on a level of disengaged abstraction--as long as, in other words, 
our criticism is castrated by the language of polite conversation.
         Roger moves into a sort of new sensibility--a world, indeed, that 
these executives know not. He pisses all over the table, drenching their 
papers in urinehe pisses on the executives. Finally he stops pissing and 
turns to Pointsman. “I’ve saved you for last. But--goodness, I don’t seem 
to have any urine left here. Not even a drop. I’m so sorry. Nothing left 
for you at all. Do you understand? If it means giving my life [
] there 
will be nothing anywhere for you. What you get, I’ll take. [
] You will 
never cancel me” (636-637, emphasis added). This is a common theme in 
Gravity’s Rainbow: Roger Mexico will haunt Pointsman. He is the specter 
lurking behind every footfall, reclaiming from Pointsman anything 
appropriated for Them. Mexico withholds recognition, fails to enter into 
the power discourse that sustains Them. Mexico makes it clear that he will 
dispossess Pointsman of his power precisely by not recognizing it, by 
adhering to his own logic. The only way, in fact, for Pointsman to cancel 
Mexico out, would be to destroy both of them. Pointsman, it seems, 
recognizes this, and is made distinctly uncomfortable. Roger has started 
asking the right questions--or perhaps more accurately, stopped asking the 
wrong questions--and suddenly They realize They don’t have any answers (see 
251). “Pointsman won’t look at him. Won’t meet his eyes” (637).
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