IVIV (1) Shasta

[alice wellintown]

rich<richard.romeo at gmail.com> wrote:
> and yet for all that Doc's turned on by it, Shasta here, and that
> ass't DA short-skirted fuck buddy of his, no?

Penny? Shasta has not been round for over a year. Doc hasn't seen her.
Nobody has. Yet, Shasta knows that Doc is "seeing" somebody downtown.
Actually, she introduces the downtown gal in the form of question: "I
heard you are seeing somebody downtown?'  And, a question a judge
might toss out as hearsay.

A-and that word "seeing" is of interest here. "Seeing someone" can
connote a meeting a visit or dating or even fucking.

That Doc repeats the word, "Seeing" (like any great poet, Pynchon uses
repetition and ambiguity) must give us pause.

Penny "pencils" Doc in and sees him. She sees him and raises him a boatload.

Note that their "seeing each other" is professional (CH. 6). He is put
on the stand and questioned.

Below is a definition of Hearsay from Wiki. We could look it up in
Blacks Law, but we would find the same.

This is fun ...but I still think .....

We might begin with a deceptively simple question: Who’s telling the story?

We might proceed with another deceptively simple question, and perhaps
the most important question to ask when reading a work of fiction: Why
did the author make this narrative choice?

If we can answer these two questions, our reading or re-reading will
be better than if we don't.


Hearsay is the legal term that describes statements made outside of
court or other judicial proceedings. Unless one of about thirty
exceptions applies, hearsay is not allowed as evidence in the United
States. The Hearsay Rule is an analytic rule of evidence that defines
hearsay and provides for both exceptions and exemptions from that
rule. There is no all-encompassing definition of hearsay in the United
States. However, most evidentiary codes defining hearsay adopt
verbatim the rule as laid out in the Federal Rules of Evidence, which
generally defines hearsay as a "statement, other than one made by the
declarant while testifying at the trial or hearing, offered in
evidence to prove the truth of the matter asserted." Historically, the
rule against hearsay is aimed at prohibiting the use of a person's
assertion, as equivalent to testimony to the fact asserted, unless the
assertor is brought to testify in court where he may be placed under
oath and cross-examined. (WIKI)