You never did the Kenosha Kid?

[kelber at mindspring.com]

Great post.  I tended to think of Skothrop's fixation on the KK as more of a random thought as he goes under, rather than a deliberate attempt to subvert or counter the effects of the drug (this was still the naive Slothrop).  Unfortunately I don't have my copy of GR available right now, since I'm about to move and it's already been packed, but I guess it hinges on at what point the drug is introduced: before, after or during the Kenosha Kid permutations.  I can't remember.  Your reading makes a lot of sense, regardless.


----Original Message-----
From: jbor at bigpond.com
Sent: Aug 27, 2005 8:40 PM
To: pynchon-l at waste.org
Subject: You never did the Kenosha Kid?

Don't know if anyone else is up for it ("What? ... *Discuss*?!"  
"Discuss *Pynchon*?! " "Discuss Pynchon's *work*?!!" "On the  
pynchon-list?!!! But that's *unheard* of!!!!"), but perhaps it might be  
timely to revisit the "Kenosha Kid" sequence in GR (pp. 60-71) seeing  
as the Forbes Parkhill story in the August 1931 Western Rangers 'zine  
(3.3) which was uncovered recently has now been made available on-line  
(and thanks to Erik for arranging that):

http://kenoshakid.wikispaces.org/

I don't see much internal connection to the episode in GR. The Kenosha  
Kid character is a sort of Robin Hood-like anti-hero I guess, which  
would have appealed to Slothrop (and to Pynchon), and there's the term  
"pard" in the teaser to the story proper, but nothing else. I wonder,  
though, if there was a sequel or spin-off to this story, or whether the  
character reappears elsewhere in Forbes Parkhill's fiction, and how one  
might go about finding that out. There are some specifics in the  
Kenosha Kid episode in GR which do seem like leads -- there's a Red  
River valley in North Dakota, for example.

I think I've mentioned this once before but I also see a connection  
between the start of Pynchon's scene with Slothrop in St Veronica's  
imagining a letter he might have written to (and the reply he received  
from) the Kenosha Kid (in Wisconsin) and the opening of _Catch-22_ with  
Yossarian censoring (in increasingly subversive ways) letters home from  
the troops while he's in the base hospital. Anyway ...

http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon- 
l&month=0504&msg=96063&sort=author

One of the aspects of Pynchon's work, GR in particular, which is  
largely neglected is its emphasis on human psychology. Behaviour --  
stimulus and response, reaction and abreaction -- is a major focus in  
the novel, of course, but it's in the characterisations where Pynchon  
is investigating some of the ways in which the human subconscious might  
or can respond in different situations, the complexities, instances of  
psychological resistance and denial, the deeper wellsprings or  
manifestations of a "collective unconscious" (and, again, it's not  
surprising that in most cases Pynchon puts the lie to a simplistic  
Pavlovian or behaviourist reading of human behaviour.) After Slothrop  
is taken to the Abreaction Ward at St Veronica's we first see him  
deliberately trying to train his mind in his own prep for the next  
Sodium Amytal injection, recalling a pulp western story he once read,  
fixating on a random sentence which has popped into his head, imagining  
the fictional character of "the Kenosha Kid" as a real person Slothrop  
knows and with whom he is corresponding, inserting himself into the  
fictional world or trying to trick himself into believing that the  
fictional world is "real", and thereby trying to upset or subvert the  
experiment, whatever it is, that the researchers are using him for. I  
think it's reasonable to suggest that even at this early point he knows  
(intuitively perhaps) or suspects that something nefarious is afoot,  
that he has become a target of, not only the German rockets, but of  
scientists and agents on his own "side".

Slothrop's strategy isn't entirely successful: in trying to sublimate  
fictional characters and events from a pulp western it all gets tangled  
up with his own deeper fears and beliefs and ultimately does provide a  
psychological narrative which can be interpreted by the analysts. And,  
ironically, what Slothrop's dream-vision indicates about deep-seated  
sexual and racial neuroses or obsessions is in fact an extremely  
revealing insight into the American psyche. It's not what Pointsman &  
co. were trying to uncover, i.e. how Slothrop seems to "know" where the  
bombs will land, but the information tells us (and could have told  
them, if they were interested) a lot about white America and its  
attitudes, both towards its own citizens and the rest of the world --  
what it's frightened of, how it has reimagined itself as the Chosen  
Land, a new Eden, with all the justifications of power and privilege  
that such a myth bestows.

I think the way Slothrop behaves in St Veronica's bears comparison to  
the way that Katje and Blicero try to submerge their knowledge or  
suspicions of what's going on in Germany -- both in terms of the kinky  
sex and espionage game they're both playing (they both know more about  
Katje being a double agent, and her betrayals both ways, and about  
Blicero having a grander scheme, than they let on, and they both seem  
to know that they both know -- it appears to add to the sexual thrill  
of it all!), and also to what's happening in the Nazi death camps.  
Katje knows, or suspects, because she has shopped Jewish families to  
keep up her cover (and it's the Dutch Resistance agents who have  
compelled her to do this), and I would say that Blicero, because of his  
rank, would have some inklings too, though it's never made explicit  
(the Shoah is almost totally absent from the novel, as we know). The  
"Oven Game" they play, which is a conscious strategy on both their  
parts, derives from the old Hansel & Gretel story, but, understandably,  
there are constant overtones of burning victims and smoke from chimneys  
which creep into their perceptions. The imagery is a reminder to the  
reader, of course, of what was happening at that time in places like  
Auschwitz, but the really interesting thing is the way that Pynchon has  
articulated it so that, despite their best attempts to suppress them,  
these reminders seep out of Katje's and Blicero's psyches.

I think that this clarification of Pynchon's source in Parkhill's story  
is a breakthrough, and that it will provide fertile ground for critical  
reexaminations of Pynchon's focus (through his characters) on human  
psychology in the novel.

best