ATDTDA (7): 189-191 plotline
David Casseres
david.casseres at gmail.com
Thu Apr 19 16:19:38 CDT 2007
I think Lake's wedding-night virginity is meant to be a mystery, and perhaps
a miracle.
On 4/19/07, Ya Sam <takoitov at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> >But later we're told she was a virgin on her wedding night. Are we,
> along
> >with Webb, jumping to conclusions about her activities, or is
> wedding-night
> >Lake an alternative reality she's created for herself? There's plenty of
> >ambiguity here.
> >
>
> Thanks Laura. You saved me the trouble of looking up that reference in
> order
> to support my argument about the ambiguity of Lake being a prostitute.
> David
> Morris rightly observes that when she comes home with cash it is pretty
> explicit to us what she's been doing. There's the rub, we are used to this
> cultural signifier to such an extent that's it's too explicit. Later this
> 'explicit' awareness is undermined by the fact that she is described as a
> virgin on her wedding night. I would say that this is intentational
> ambiguity on Pynchon's part. But of course we can split medical and
> theological hairs as to what 'virginity' actually means, and whether a
> prostitute can remain a virgin. But what if she did win it by betting on a
> prize fighter? And there is this parallel universes thing as well.
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> FREE pop-up blocking with the new MSN Toolbar - get it now!
> http://toolbar.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200415ave/direct/01/
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20070419/75224d2d/attachment.html>
More information about the Pynchon-l
mailing list