Bianca

[Carvill John]

Tore

This is all very good. I wish I had time to think about it properly, not 
that I could promise to come up with anything worthwhile.......

I read, with interest, what you said before about the Bianca sequence maybe 
being a dream, but for my purposes it doesn't really make much difference. 
Maybe it being a dream exonerates Slothrop but it's not Tyrone I'm worried 
about! My question remains why does paedophilia seem to be such a recurring 
theme in Pynchon? I am not suggesting it's because he has such leanings 
himself, but I just think there is too much of it in his work for it to be 
explained away as a metaphor or whatever. Apart form anything else, does he 
really need Zwolfkinder *and* Bianca to make this point? And how does it fit 
with Zoyd and his chasing after girls his daughter's age?

AS for the Duyfhuizen article, I never found it too convincing and, again, 
is it really relevant what age Bianca is, compared to what age Slothrop 
thinks she is when he has sex with her?

Gotta go........


<< ... "the manipulation of children in Gravity's Rainbow should be read as 
a means of resisting the state's long history of appropriating the innocence 
of its children for its prosecution of war." In other words, the sex-scene 
with Bianca (which I'd still argue could be read as a dream) is Pynchon's 
attempt to deprive the State of its cooptation of childhood. The soothing 
image of innocence to be found in places like Zwölfkinder or Disneyworld is 
merely, the argument goes, a sophisticated form of social control, meant to 
lull us into complacence in times of war, and the scenes with the seductress 
Bianca or Ludwig who peddles his ass for a few pieces of chewing-gum are 
meant to undermine this sneaky form of social control.

Rando's argument is an interesting attempt at a rational explanation for 
some of the most disturbing elements in GR (more convincing, at least, than 
Duyfhuizen's adjustment of Bianca's age) but I haven't really made up my 
mind about whether I'm convinced by the argument or not. If Rando's correct, 
I still think that the price Pynchon pays for resisting the state's 
cooptation of the culture of childhood is somewhat too high. >>

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