ATDTDA (7): Sidekicks, 195-196

[bekah]

If Deuce is a son and Lake is a daughter, then when  Deuce kills his 
father and sleeps with his sister  we are only one step away from 
Oedipus.   Kind of like a Westernized Greek tragedy there. 
Probably duh to many?

Bekah




At 7:27 AM -0400 4/28/07, Monte Davis wrote:
>  > More of Deuce's backstory, including his relationship
>>  with Sloat Fresno: each thinks of the other as his
>>  "sidekick", "each thinking he was protecting the
>>  other"...
>
>>  The text gives us a lot of information about Deuce in
>>  these pages, this superior knowledge effectively
>>  distancing the reader from Webb. Hence, the above
>>  passage begs the question: how will Deuce find that he
>>  wants to go through with this job?...
>
>A very persuasive reading, Paul, especially on Deuce's ambivalent need for
>"something he could find either contemptible or desirable enough to prod him
>through it."
>
>So often, with the funny names and the distancing techniques you've noted,
>one thinks Pynchon is settling for two-dimensional cardboard, especially in
>a secondary or instrumental character -- and then a ray of stinging
>psychological truth like this brings out the relief. It has happened with
>Scarsdale Vibe, and it will happen with Derrick Theign.
>
>On your remark the other day that Webb "is perhaps anxious to see in Deuce
>the child he has failed, at home, to nurture": let's not be too
>sophisticated to give "Deuce Kindred" its most obvious reading as "second
>family."