TMoP Chapter 19

[Richard Ryan]

Anna's relationship with D is, for me, one of the most beautiful and psychologically resonant aspects of this novel.  She alternates between sympathy, contempt, tenderness and passion in a way that is (my apologies to female members of the list if this sounds sexist) very familiar. 


--- On Fri, 11/21/08, Lawrence Bryan <lebryan at speakeasy.net> wrote:

> From: Lawrence Bryan <lebryan at speakeasy.net>
> Subject: TMoP Chapter 19
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Date: Friday, November 21, 2008, 6:37 PM
> A very short chapter.
> 
> After feeling at loose ends over Anna's angry departure
> the evening before, D is surprised by her early return from
> the shop. Fires and rioting have closed all the shops where
> she works. Students and workers are battling the police.
> 
> That night she returns to him again and she is more
> passionate than ever. She cries out, ignoring the fact that
> her daughter is asleep in the next room. D is somewhat taken
> aback by the intensity of her coupling and thinks he hears
> her refer to him as a devil.
> 
> After a second coupling fails, she weeps, "I can't
> go on!" then "Please leave us alone,"
> 
> D:  "You think I have been using you?"
> 
> Anna: "...you use me as a route to my child."
> 
> She admits she has sex with him because she's afraid he
> will "... use Matryosha in the same way."
> 
> Anna walks out but returns later that night to tell him to
> forget what she said and to stay the night.
> 
> D awakens in the morning to see Matryona staring at him and
> her mother.
> 
> Lawrence