ATDTDA (13): Reef's dead, 362-364

[Paul Nightingale]

Bottom of 361: "... all the death-defying law, Pinkerton and public". And
then, top of 363, Reef to Burgess: "You're just some li'l old saloon bum in
their palace o' wealth ..." etc, going on to refer slightingly to the mass
production of (expendable) law officers, "... next dumb animal comes blinkin
out of the chute, pins on that star ..." etc (which is also, of course, an
allusion to the slaughterhouse that marks the end of the West (53, Professor
Vanderjuice on the American Cowboy).

Betwixt (a) and (b) comes the passage in question. Last time out I cut it
off short, so here it is in its entirety:

"If Capital's own books showed a balance in clear favor of damnation, if
these plutes were undeniably evil hombres, then how much more so were those
who took care of their problems for them, in no matter what ignorance of
why, not all of their faces on the wanted bills, in that darkly textured
style that was more about the kind of remembering, the unholy longing going
on out here, than of any real-life badman likeness...." (362)

1. I agree with Mike that the passage refers, in the first instance, to law
officers: "faces on the wanted bills" signify the power of the law to
determine who is guilty, so "not all of their faces on the wanted bills"
signifies the fact that some "evil hombres" will not be considered guilty,
because (like Burgess) they are doing their duty etc.

2. To begin with, then, the passage (ie Reef) argues that the rich and
powerful are guilty, but only doing what you'd expect, to defend their own
interests; but greater guilt attaches to those who have sold themselves to
defend the plutes' interests when it isn't in their own interests to do so.
A bit of good ol'-fashioned false consciousness.

3. The passage then shoots off in another direction entirely to focus on the
bill itself. As Wood puts it: "Pynchon is saying that the drawings on the
"Wanted" posters never looked like the real men, and that their unlikeness
-- their "darkly textured style" -- tells us more about a "kind of
remembering," an idea, or Barthesian "mythology" of the Wild West, than
anything else." Cf. P's Introduction to Stone Junction, where he makes a
simple distinction "between outlaws and evil-doers, between outlawry and
sin"; and consider also the not unaffectionate drawing of Jimmy Drop,
"notorious local gunhand" (198), bearing in mind Jimmy's subsequent
condemnation of Deuce (311). This is not to say that desperados like Jimmy
are good chaps and I'd rather be murdered by him than by Deuce Kindred, any
day. It is to point out the distinction between those who act on their own
behalf, and those, like Deuce, who have been bought by, eg, the Vibean
plute. There is an ideological point that the wanted bills make all
criminals the same in order that the idea of the law be seen as aloof.

4. The sentence in question than takes the form of a digression, just as the
narrative, at the top of the page following, will 'digress' to the scene
with Burgess. Reef's thought processes are not muddled; the writing is
simply making a connection between (a) the use of mass-produced wanted bills
to generate fear and promote the idea of the law officer as an impartial
public servant (Burgess' take) and (b) the unending supply of such
individuals. David suggests that the ignorance of those who have been bought
off by plutes might be considered exculpatory, to be offered in mitigation,
even though ignorance might also imply additional guilt. I wouldn't say P
has muddied the waters, if by that we mean intentionally make obscure
something that would otherwise be perfectly clear. Given that the passage
represents, gives the reader access to, Reef's thoughts, I would say it also
distances the reader from the incomplete analysis that Reef the character
might be able to offer: the text summarises, without being reducible to,
Reef's thinking.

5. Wood doesn't dwell on "the unholy longing going on out here", beyond
dismissing it as "a little idle, a little vague": this is the part that
makes the sentence quite complex.