TMoP, Chapter 17

[Mark Kohut]

"the death of innocence, D. thinks.......reminds me that dostoevsky felt
cruelly hurting a child was (almost) the unforgiveable sin.......
Was the test of God, a just God. the existence of.............

he feels alone on a vast plain........

and the gun is seen and remains.




--- On Mon, 11/17/08, Lawrence Bryan <lebryan at speakeasy.net> wrote:

> From: Lawrence Bryan <lebryan at speakeasy.net>
> Subject: Re: TMoP, Chapter 17
> To: "pynchon -l" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Date: Monday, November 17, 2008, 9:30 PM
> More gnashing of teeth and Prufrockian dithering. He wants
> to go home but has no passport and no money. Thwarted by the
> police bureaucracy, by no reply from his benefactor, Maykov,
> and at the end of the chapter by a small piece of ice that
> catches a missile aimed at the running water next to it, he
> continues to stumble about.
> 
> The bulk of the chapter is a scene with Matryona in which
> he discovers that Nechaev has spun his web (through Pavel?)
> as far as the child. She dutifully carries out her
> assignment to surreptitiously provide poison to the Finn
> when the police brought her by in a previous chapter.  Was
> the small sack of poison Pavel's? Did he share the use
> of it with Matryona or did Nechaev? Did Pavel have a sack
> around his neck when he was found? If the police found it
> would they have mentioned it to Dostoevsky? If it wasn't
> there was it because Pavel didn't have one or was it
> because he really was murdered and by Nechaev or his gang
> and the sack was removed. Coetzee doesn't reveal any
> interest on Dostoevsky's part to find out.
> 
> Lawrence