You never did the Kenosha Kid?

[jbor at bigpond.com]

Thanks. Yes, I think at the point where we come in on the scene  
Slothrop is deliberately attempting to create randomness in his mental  
associations, both linguistically and also by bringing to life in his  
imagination this Kenosha Kid character (and inventing a "real world" or  
"same world" relationship between himself and the character), and this  
is just prior to the injection being administered. At the top of p. 62,  
after he's been given the shot, one of the interrogators from PISCES  
says, "We want to talk some more about Boston today, Slothrop." That  
"some more" indicates that there have been other sessions (one or more)  
prior to this one I think. So Slothrop, under the influence of the  
truth serum, is forced to recall an incident from his youth in Boston,  
but does eventually manage to mix it all together deep in his  
subsconscious into a bizarre scenario which becomes a surreal parody of  
a pulp Western story, 'The Kenosha Kid', which he once read, and which  
he has been fixating on. Even at this early point in the novel, with  
Slothrop at his most naive, he is still a paranoid. Rightly so, as it  
turns out.

Btw, I can see a potential _Citizen Kane_ (1941) connection in the way  
the name "Rosebud" is misinterpreted by the clueseekers in that movie  
-- and it might also be where the Orson Welles' birthplace in Kenosha  
coincidence ties in -- with the red herrings Slothrop is trying to  
construct to throw his inquisitors off the scent in respect of where  
the phrase and personage "The Kenosha Kid" actually derive from, when  
they eventually manifest in Slothrop's "confession". I have no doubt  
that Slothrop would have seen _Citizen Kane_.

best

On 29/08/2005, at 12:18 AM, kelber at mindspring.com wrote:

> 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
>