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

[Paul Mackin]

On Jul 18, 2007, at 12:46 PM, Paul Nightingale wrote:

> 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.

It measures degree of guilt with more emphasis on how badly one  
misbehaves toward one's class than
with how badly one acts toward a fellow human. A bit idiosyncratic.

It does speak for a strong sense of class solidarity, which Reef  
definitely has. It's not  out of tune with Reef's character.

But the bold faced implication or argument that "only doing what  
you'd expect"  (of a plute) may be some kind of extenuating  
circumstance in the crime of murder runs the danger of reinforcing in  
the minds of many readers that Reef's views are only questionably  
reliable.

I think it's a fair assumption that most readers will not  
particularly agree with that part of Reef's reasoning.

So the paragraph is a pretty forceful, even drastic,  move on  
Pynchon's part. It will alter readers' reactions to Reef's future  
part in the book more,
I think, than his mere only-to-be-expected rejection of bourgeois  
morality, which is sop for anarchists.

So can we surmise that Reef is meant to be, if not some kind of  
unreliable witness, at lease something on that order.

In all the clutter it will be very hard to tell.

Think this kind of thing might apply as one of Wood's general  
reservations about Pynchon.

It's not something Pynchon reader's haven't become used to.

Name me anyone in his books who's that authoritative about anything.



  P.


>

> 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.
>