ATDTDA (5.4) - Bad Ice After Midnight

[Tore Rye Andersen]

Ya Sam:

>That was pretty puzzling for me when Pynchon revealed the Nunatak 'spirit' 
>as an odalisque. Why odalisque? And, what is more important, who decided 
>that it was an odalisque or odalisque-like? The narrator, that's for sure, 
>but that should be the reaction of the expedition members as well.

Right, Ya Sam (and Robin and David): back on track!

Not exactly sure that the figure is "revealed" as an odalisque. In the same 
paragraph it's also described as "serpent-like" and "Mongoloid" (none of 
which seem to correspond very well with the stereotypical image of an 
odalisque), so rather than revealing this vague Figure as anything 
particular, I think Pynchon is just piling on layers of (often 
contradictory, but also significant) descriptions here. As you point out, Ya 
Sam, the description of the odalisque is pretty fuzzy, and the invocation of 
an odalisque here only adds to the fuzziness. I mostly think Pynchon invokes 
an odalisque here because the Figure, as the narrator tells us, "appeared to 
recline on its side". As the Pynchonwiki tells us, odalisques were often 
depicted as 'reclining beauties' in the paintings of yore and by calling the 
Figure an odalisque, Pynchon riffs on this reclining aspect:

http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_119-148#Page_141

Also, the word (and a wonderful word it is!) seems to provide the figure 
with a somehow awful sensuous and languid quality: a dormant passion just 
below the reclining surface (and in the City, that passion finally erupts).
Finally, in my mind at least, the description of the Figure as an odalisque 
ties it to previous scary androgynous figures in Pynchon's works: like V., 
like the "effeminate" Tristero assassins in Lot 49, and like Blicero in a 
drag outfit.

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