ATD SPOILER p 262-269

[kelber at mindspring.com]

SPOILER ALERT: whole book

















The interesting thing for me is to compare the "bad" Lake-Deuce-Sloat threesome with the "good" Yashmeen-Cyprian-Reef threesome.   Double images of the same relationship.  In terms of the female participants, Lake is passive=bad, Yashmeen is dominant=good.  In terms of the "middle," Lake is a passive intermediary between the two men, who themselves never have sexual contact.  Cyprian is somehow  an active, life-affirming middle (it's implied that he was as involved as the others in creating Yashmeen's pregnancy, as a sperm-transporter) in a relationship that's circular, not linear, and appears to be based on some sort of shared love between the three.  Pynchon may be making the point that the first is based in traditional space (the 4-corners coordinates) while the latter relationship is based in an alternate coordinate (Reimann space?) where the difference between linear and circular blurs.  Or maybe he's just into 3-ways?

LK


-----Original Message-----
>From: Tore Rye Andersen <torerye at hotmail.com>

>
>>From: "John Pendergast" <jpender at siue.edu>
>>
>>Is it possible Pynchon is using Lake (and using her he certainly is) to
>>suggest that their revenge is misplaced, a relic of an older, now 
>>antiquated
>>way of doing things? As the novel continues (spoiler break)

>>
>>the motivations for revenge peter out, lose momentum, and finally get lost
>>in the larger issues of the novel's world. In this reading (granted, just 
>>an
>>initial one, based on one far from satisfactory reading), Lake is the hero
>>of the bunch in the sense that she does not waste time pursuing "pagan" 
>>wild
>>justice, as Bacon called revenge somewhere, in one of his essays that I
>>think is about to become important to all of us. I'll get back to you on
>>this.
>>
>>jp
>
>I certainly have a hard time seeing Lake as the hero of AtD. I fully agree 
>with you that the violent sex-scene with Deuce and Sloat can be profitably 
>read as Pynchon's critique of "an older, now antiquated way of doing 
>things," but that Lake is victimized in this scne hardly makes her a hero. 
>Frank, Reef and Kit aren't heroes either (as always in Pynchon's novels, if 
>there are heroes, they're often to be found in the margins), but Pynchon 
>doesn't seem to extend the least bit of sympathy to Lake, and why should he? 
>She doesn't participate in the revenge machinations of her brothers, but her 
>actions are at least as problematic as theirs, and her final fate is 
>certainly a bleak and arid one.
>
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