IVing IV 'indict a bean burrito', p. 277

[alice wellintown]

I'm not splitting hairs.   There is a deliberately constructed, self
conscious distance between the implied author of the text (P) and the
narrator; it is a distance that renders Larry's view unreliable and
affords all manner of opportunities for P to employ irony and other
ambiguities. I'm not pulling any rugs out here or wishing to revisit
the "critic with the most ironic reading wins" discussion, but
conflating the implied author or worse, the author, and the
protagonist-narrator of a parodic and ironic postmodern text only
muddies the waters.  Larry is not the implied author and he clearly
does not embody or represent the implied author's norms. The statement
about love that Larry makes, is foolish and naive. The implied author
is niether of these. Larry is burnt out; he doesn't even know what
went down and he can't remember half of what he does know. Besides,
his bitterness over Shasta skews his view of love. And, he lacks the
historical auhtority that the author keeps at a distance from him and
shares with the reader. We know what Larry don't. That's a kind of
irony. Also, we know that when Larry says something, the implied
author often menas something else, often the opposite. More irony,
more distance. That P can create that distance and irony with such
seemless prose and dialogue is one of the reasons he is recognized as
a great writer.

On Thu, Dec 3, 2009 at 6:33 PM, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Alice sez:
> I read the statement as
> Larry telling us something about Larry and how he sees things.
>
> Virtually the same questions apply.
>
> --- On Thu, 12/3/09, alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> From: alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com>
>> Subject: Re: IVing IV 'indict a bean burrito', p. 277
>> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
>> Date: Thursday, December 3, 2009, 6:25 PM
>> I don't read the statement as P
>> telling and not showing the reader,
>> not that I have any problem with authors telling as opposed
>> to showing
>> or believe one method better or whatever, but I read the
>> statement as
>> Larry telling us something about Larry and how he sees
>> things. We've
>> come a long way since 1970, in terms of language and its
>> use to
>> dominate, but changing things like body language, because
>> we're not as
>> conscious of it as we are of verbal language and how our
>> attitudes are
>> affected by words, has not changed much. So males still
>> dominate with
>> looks and body movement, tone of voice, the number and kind
>> of words
>> (curse words are very powerful and males get to use them
>> and females
>> don't), the volume of conversations and the like. And males
>> dominate
>> in sexual foreplay and in all heterosexual
>> activities.  Penny is
>> trying; she's not gonna put on no Manson wig for Larry. But
>> the risk,
>> again, to the female in the patriarch is em[hasized again
>> and again in
>> this work. Penny's attraction to the vertical
>> egalitarianism in
>> Manson, could put her in a pink prison and could put a
>> world of hurt
>> on The NOW. She could lose her job for leaving that file on
>> her desk.
>> She could lose what little she has gained and we know she
>> works hard
>> for her money and is paid less than the boyz in the
>> Treehouse. And,
>> those boyz ain't living off a salary they earn alone, but
>> off
>> ..."overtime pay."
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Dec 3, 2009 at 5:48 PM, John Bailey <sundayjb at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> > I don't buy that Doc is some kind of sensitive role
>> model - he's at
>> > the business end of plenty of unrequested fellatio but
>> the hysterical
>> > tone surrounding pussy eating in IV, and the fact he
>> has to be
>> > prompted to it (by Luz)... and his former subscription
>> to Teen Nymphos
>> > or whatever it was called... and the way so many women
>> are
>> > cartoonishly available to screw him...
>> >
>> > It all seems distinctly at odds with that peculiar
>> early line -
>> > "Anyone with any claim to hipness 'loved' everybody,
>> not to mention
>> > other useful applications, like hustling people into
>> sex activities
>> > they might not, given the choice, much care to engage
>> in."
>> >
>> > Where does this notion disappear to after page 5?
>> Never gets picked up again.
>> >
>> > Yet it's a rare example of tell-don't-show in P's
>> work. It's an
>> > argument regarding the sexual revolution that jars.
>> >
>> > There have been plenty of more straightforward
>> arguments along these
>> > lines - Linda Grant's terrific "Sexing the Millennium"
>> reckons that
>> > the sexual revolution was like most revolutions,
>> finally reasserting a
>> > new power structure just as limiting as the old:
>> >
>> > It "had turned out to be a history of radical ideas
>> repackaged for the
>> > mass market... If anyone had benefited, it was often
>> asserted, it was
>> > men. Where before there had existed a restraining
>> morality that put
>> > wives, mothers, virgins, and children off-limits, a
>> double-standard
>> > that could work in women's favour, now all women were
>> fair game."
>> >
>> > On Fri, Dec 4, 2009 at 9:23 AM, alice wellintown
>> > <alicewellintown at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> >> The same gesture--looking at another---can
>> indicate deference and
>> >> submission. P certainly knew this long before
>> feminists published
>> >> studies on the gaze(s). That females look away or
>> lower or avert their
>> >> gaze when a male looks at them, as submissive
>> animals do, is science.
>> >> But, human context is complex. Moreover, if we add
>> speaking and
>> >> listening to the mix, to the context (where, when,
>> the power
>> >> relationships--education, employment, age, level
>> of expertise) and to
>> >> gazing,  we complicate things considerably.
>> >>
>> >> P is writing with these things, stage direction
>> descriptions. Is it working?
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> On Thu, Dec 3, 2009 at 12:27 PM, Michael Bailey
>> >> <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> >>> oh Mark, perish forbid (as my grandmother used
>> to say:
>> >>>>
>> >>>>  Might P be hinting that, like Frenesi,
>> women (many women) in the new America of relationships that
>> is beginning here, WANT submission?
>> >>>>
>> >>>>
>> >>>
>> >>> I'll buy that maybe he's hinting that men like
>> Zoyd, whose best shot at
>> >>> non-domineering relationships somehow misses
>> the hoop
>> >>> (maybe distracted by all those shoes squeaking
>> on the floor)
>> >>> and who see the person to whom they directed
>> the not-Mesmeric-enough passes
>> >>> apparently looking in other guys for that
>> quality they deliberately excluded,
>> >>> will occasionally wonder if that isn't the
>> key...but they can't
>> >>> bring themselves to regress that much...
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>> --
>> >>> - "The doctor said give him jug band music; it
>> seems to make him feel
>> >>> just fine!"
>> >>>
>> >>
>> >
>>
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