IVIV1: The second day

[Mark Kohut]

I like this. When I read IV, after a couple prepatory Chandlers, I said to myself as I picked it up one day, "I am NOT driven to pick it up as story, as i was Chandler." (I did not want to stop Chandler; I wanted to start even before morning coffee). 

So, one might say that laid-backness is even embedded in the plot. (More related to this during hosting)

And, community and its loss, yes also. Everything golden is being uprooted.

--- On Mon, 8/31/09, Paul Nightingale <isread at btinternet.com> wrote:

> From: Paul Nightingale <isread at btinternet.com>
> Subject: IVIV1: The second day
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Date: Monday, August 31, 2009, 3:57 AM
> 1.2 opens with the transition to day
> two (12). The action of the novel takes
> place over a month or so, worthy of note because it
> underpins a lack of
> urgency, ie 'I must turn the page to see what happens next'
> will
> characterise a narrative that is plot-driven and occupies
> no more than a few
> days. For the most part IV will signal the passing days, so
> to speak, in
> passing. A typical example here, from "early-morning
> dreams" (and we might
> cf. this opening paragraph to the opening on 1, ie Shasta's
> "Thinks he's
> hallucinating") to the new paragraph, bottom of 12: "He
> stumbled up the hill
> to Wavos and had breakfast with the hard-core surfers who
> were always
> there."
> 
> So we know it's day two, without the text making a big
> deal. The text will
> make a bigger deal on a couple of occasions later, which we
> can address at
> the appropriate time. There are also a couple of places
> where such dating is
> absent. This also might or might not be interesting.
> 
> Reference to Doc having breakfast also confirms the
> narrative importance of
> community: in 1.1 we have already had Doc and family, and
> Doc and Denis.
> Doc's conversation with Aunt Reet (7-8) might be said to
> move the action
> forward in a very obvious way; elsewhere, interactions
> function differently.
> This is one reason why IV lacks the plot-driven urgency of
> early-Marlowe.
> Having just started reading the Easy Rawlins novels (and
> Devil in a Blue
> Dress opens as a parody of Farewell My Lovely to signal
> revisionist intent
> from the outset) I would say the writing of community
> relations is central
> for Mosley.
> 
> Which brings us to the key feature of day two, the
> appearance of Tariq in
> 1.3: "What made him unusual was, was he was a black guy"
> (14). If 1.1
> referenced the personal history of Doc and Shasta, Tariq's
> appearance gives
> us another kind of history-writing, another way of asking
> how we know what
> we know, going back to 1940s ethnic cleansing (14-17).
> Tariq follows Shasta
> in mocking Doc's pretensions (from "Thanks, Dear Abby said
> about the same
> thing" on 3, to "Secretary's off today?" on 12), but Doc is
> now located in a
> community that doesn't just recycle breakfast but
> remembers.
> 
> 
> 
>