IVIV (8): Downstairs Eddie

[alice wellintown]

I see little advantage to reading P's parents as traditional realist
characters. Larry's parents meet in 1934. Why 34? The year is famous
for a bunch of events including some big ones in Germany and Italy,
but also in the USA where the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression are
razing castles made of sand. Some major Gangsters get hit: Bonnie &
Clyde are killed in May of 1934, Joh Dillinger in July 1934, Baby Face
Nelson in November.  SO what? What have Bonnie & Clyde to do with
Larry's parents? Like their son they imitate celebrity. First Bonnie &
Clyde, then a series of other couples. Like Larry, like Zoyd, like all
P's Film/TV/Reel-Real Life characters, and this has been his method of
characterization since V., Larry's parents imitate celebrity
characters. Hecor can zap into Clint Eastwood Dirty Harry and back
into Hector Tube Addict then back to some other TV-detective. Now,
they are parodic figures, Now they are satirized for their copy-cat
lives and for modeling TV characters. They zap into sentimental
sit-com channels and appear to be normal, that is, if we take "Jewish"
Sit-Com Family as anything appraoching normal--mostly neorotic,
infantile, loud, rarely funny. All this, of course, defuses Brock
Vond, Reagan, the CIA. Far more insidious than a Rocket, this is no
CIA tool of torture or Big Brother in your living room. It's Gnostic
Control and it defines what is REAL.



On Sat, Oct 3, 2009 at 3:35 PM, Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Oct 3, 2009 at 2:18 PM, Michael Bailey
> <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Why would he bring Leo and Elmina in to just satirize them?
>
> Are tehse the most, if not the only, normal, well-adjusted, whatever,
> parents in Pynchonhood?  After that, there's Zoyd Wheeler (well, and
> Chas. Mason) ...
>