IVIV, Bigfoot on Doc's case

[kelber at mindspring.com]

Then there's the "Can I have a bite?/wait for the rottweiler" joke on p. 22.  OK, maybe Bigfoot and Doc are consciously trading really bad sit-com-style one-liners.  And Pynchon's doing this as a spoof of really bad sit-coms, a la The Simpsons Spin-Off Showcase.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Simpsons_Spin-Off_Showcase

If that's the case, though, it falls horribly flat, mostly because there's nothing fresh or original about spoofing dumbed down jokes.  Even if we accept that IV isn't meant to be a brilliant book, we'd still like something just a little more original or biting.  Sure, there are dumb jokes in his other books, but they're embedded in a lot richer material than we have here.  Without, say, the Kirghiz Light or ruminations on US imperialism as a quick antidote, they stand out like a sore thumb.

Laura

-----Original Message-----
>From: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>

>
>And then there is this 'joke':
>'Watch your head'
>'Watch my....how'm I spoze to do that, man?"
>
>Doc just joking? head-banged and still out of it?
>
>He can't be that stupid...
>
>Din't work for me...lame one.
>
>
>
>