NP Best Wishes/Catching Up

[Paul Mackin]

On Nov 7, 2006, at 4:28 PM, Carvill John wrote:

> Thanks to everyone who sent kind messages to me re. the birth of my  
> son, on Wednesday. It shows a nice side to the list.
>
> Been catching up - a bit - with the posts I've missed. Great stuff  
> on the ATD seal, and what about that Miss BOMARC photo? Wow!
>
> Wonder why the discussion about Slothrop & Bianca never got off the  
> ground? I know there has been discussion on that subject before,  
> and there is that article explaining that BIanca is (maybe) not as  
> young as she seems, but to me the key question is - why does  
> Pynchon put that stuff in his books? Why have a scene like that  
> between Slothrop and Bianca, or the imagined incest on the boat  
> between Franz and what may or may not be his daughter?
>
The most obvious answer would be that the passages are allegorical.    
It would be very  boring to expend a lot of verbiage describing how  
nations of Europe have continued to trick, lie to, and pillage each  
other,  but a steamy scene of  unlawful sexual temptation, desire and  
ravishment may implant the idea at a subconscious level..