IVIV (0) This Lively Yarn

[Tore Rye Andersen]

Robert Mahnke:

> I would say that the action is later in the spring [...] because
> at several points in the narrative, Doc watches or refers to the
> results of the NBA playoffs, first (again, if memory serves) the
> Western Conference playoffs, and later the Finals [...] between 
> the Knicks and Lakers. [...]
> And the finals between the Knicks and the Lakers, which the Knicks 
> won in seven games, began on April 24 and ended on May 8. 
 
I've located the references in IV now, and you're absolutely right:
Doc watches the NBA playoffs, up to and including the seventh game
of the finals between the Knicks and the Lakers. In fact, the novel
ends on the very day of that seventh game. The final chapter begins:
 
"When it became tragically obvious too late in the fourth quarter that 
the Lakers would lose Game 7 of the finals to the Knicks [...]" (IV, 364).
 
Doc turns off the telly and decides to drive up to Santa Monica, where
he visits Sparky who's busy with the ARPAnet. Doc then heads to Zucky's
for some chocolate cream pie, after which he drives home in the fog. 
The end.
 
In other words, the novel ends on the night of Game 7 of the finals.
There are two important implications here:
 
1) The novel ends on Pynchon's 33rd birthday - a nice way of underscoring
the semi-autobiographical nature of IV.
 
2) The novel ends just four days after the Kent State Massacre (May 4, 1970).
Many people have pointed to Charlie Manson as the guy who murdered the
Sixties, but one could just as easily point to those National Guardsmen
who opened fire on the students that day as the true culprits. At any rate,
the Kent State Massacre was one more example of the paving over of the beach,
and thus a fitting incident to end IV with (without explicitly saying so).
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