Bianca

Ray Easton kraimie at kraimie.net
Thu Nov 9 13:56:43 CST 2006


On Thursday, Nov 9, 2006, at 09:01 US/Central, Monte Davis wrote:

> What is pervasive in Pynchon, and *meant* to provoke the unease you're
> feeling, is the insistence that the erotic and sexual moments  -- the
> moments when you would be most unguarded, most yourself, most open to
> another, most free of "public" social roles and expectations -- are
> precisely the moments when Powers you'd rather not think about -- 
> within and
> without -- may be most busily at work. (cf. Plato, Choderlos de Laclos,
> Freud, Plath, Norman O. Brown, Foucault, Sappho, Mailer, any random
> bodice-ripper or Mike Hammer novel, _passim_).

Let me ask you a slightly different question than the one I previously 
posed to the list:  what is there *in the text itself* that leads you 
to conclude that the Slothrup and Bianca episode is an instance of 
"control"?

I agree that the theme you state is pervasive in GR.  I agree with your 
analysis in the other instances you cite.  But I fail to see in the 
text any suggestion that that is what is happening in the case of 
Slothrup and Bianca.  Could you enlighten me?  (That is *not* intended 
sarcastically.)

R.




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