IV 15 p256 reprogramming the cash flow

[Joseph Tracy]

Accidentally sent this to John instead of the list
On Nov 17, 2009, at 12:57 AM, John Bailey wrote:


> Mmmm, re-read the later Shasta bits today and I'm more confused. In
> their last meeting she admits that she lied about going up north to
> visit family (the way she puts it sort of puts the kybosh on the
> brainwashing thing) and says she sent the postcard after escaping the
> Golden Fang. By why send a postcard (indirectly) directing Doc to GF
> HQ? Hardly a friendly thing to do. She can't really expect him to
> bring down the organisation. And points to Richard for noting that
> Shasta's an actor. It's hard to trust her.
>

OK I had glanced through 17 but it looks like that escaped my  
attention. Glad you caught that. So it looks like Shasta was not  
brainwashed but I am still doubtful about her being an agent. What is  
she getting out of it, and why would she direct Doc toward operatives  
of the Fang? Wouldn't that be extremely dangerous to her? It seems  
that in Ch 15 she is trying to keep Doc away from the dangers of his  
own curiosity, knowing the powers involved.

  Do others agree that Mickey was brainwashed  or is deal making  and  
fear a better explanation for his conversion?

>
> But maybe IV is the novel where Pynchon stops trying to describe
> paranoia and instead tries to engender it in the reader. Gottdurnit, I
> don't trust anyone in this freaking tale.
>
> On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 4:41 PM, Richard Fiero <rfiero at gmail.com>  
> wrote:
>
>> Joseph Tracy wrote:
>>  . . .
>>
>>>
>>> My reading is that she and Mickey Wolfmann have been been
>>> successfully reprogrammed. . .
>>>
>>
>> I think that Shasta has been an operative all along.
>> She just happens to stroll into Doc's life and drop stuff about a  
>> plan of
>> Sloane and Riggs which is possibly the plan in which she is a cog.
>> She is able to send a postcard while kidnapped.
>> She knows where the Golden Fang HQ on Sunset is.
>> She's in the movie biz and supposedly can act.
>> We can't know who is running her but she is run.
>>
>>
>>> ( I think the implication is that this is in
>>> the provenance of CIA MK ultra types, or Golden Fang Blatnoyd types
>>> which is the fictional version).
>>>
>>
>> Please consult Adam Curtis and Naomi Klein about the long 20th  
>> century
>> history of mind control and marketing.
>> We recall that CIA is run by and reports to the US President. Who  
>> runs the
>> President?  Probably the elites of which Japonica's father is a  
>> member.
>> Recall Blatnoyd.
>>
>>