IVIV (11) 180-1

[Joseph Tracy]

Titus is also the name of the Greek  gentile evangelist who traveled  
with Paul (Galatians 2 1-3)
	1Then fourteen years later I went up again to Jerusalem with  
Barnabas, and took Titus with me also.
     	 2And I went up by revelation, and communicated unto them that  
Gospel which I preach among the Gentiles, but privately to those who  
were 	of reputation, lest by any means I should run, or had run, in  
vain.
    	 3But neither was Titus, who was with me, being a Greek,  
compelled to be circumcised;

Titus was later  appointed to be a kind of Bishop in Crete, where  
Paul wrote him a letter.
So his name is loaded with Christian significance.

The resurrection of the body was Paul's big thing and became the  
central doctrine by which "heresy"  was removed and the New  
Testament  canon chosen by the early church. ( If there be no  
resurrection , then your faith is in vain.)

So we go from  Japonica's journey through the the wold of the  
"Beast"  in which it seems that they were saved from some radically  
insane driving by the Police,  to Blanoyds gated and moated house, to  
a garage called  Resurrection of the Body where Doc's wounded vehicle  
is being worked on. Here  Doc meets a friend with his own injured  
vehicle.  The image here seems reminiscent of disciples racing to the  
tomb. Perhaps a contrast is being set up between the false  
resurrection of the Beast/ Golden Fang raised out of the Vietnam-like  
hell hole to another kind of rebirth. As Clement points out with  
regard to Coy we are somewhere after the death , and after sightings  
of the risen Coy , but before the the nature of that resurrection is  
clear.

I know I'm  stretching here, but  because of the context , when  
Japonica asks her aren't you the guy question, it reminds me of Peter  
being asked aren't you one of his disciples.

This death and resurrection motif was pretty central to ATD with the  
crucifixion-like killing of Webb Traverse and the subsequent life of  
his 4 children ( with textually  embedded references to the 4 gospels  
and the 4 directions)

Mayhap there is a reference here to the death and questionable  
resurrection of the auto industry/ the economy/ the soul/ the  
constitution  of America?





On Oct 27, 2009, at 8:07 PM, Clément Lévy wrote:

> - The episode with Blatnoyd ends a bit quickly here. Has he been  
> abducted too?
>
> - Japonica will leave Doc and Denis, she's going to a rich part of  
> LA county, where live many actors, and where German artists and  
> intellectuals lived during WW2: any relation with her Benz?
>
> - All three are high, but Japonica recognizes Doc
>
> - a good pun gives its name to the body repair shop where Denis has  
> put Doc's car. Resurrection of the Body could also be another  
> allusion to the New Testament.
>
> - For the authors of the Pynchon Wiki, this is the moment when  
> things get a bit confused on a chronological point of view. Maybe  
> because we're approching the very middle of the book. And no Coy  
> Harlingen in sight during the whole chapter (his absence should  
> make sense–can we make of him a mock Jesus Christ?).
>
> - Tito Stavrou. His given name reminds the ruler of Yugoslavia, but  
> it is also a Spanish form of the latin name of an emperor, Titus,  
> who loved Berenice, but had to let her down, whereas she loved him  
> too, but she was a queen of Judaea, and a Roman emperor couldn't  
> take a stranger for wife (Racine made a wonderful tragedy about  
> this story).
> But Edgar Allan Poe also wrote a Berenice, a short story in which  
> Berenice is someone else. She will marry her cousin, Egaeus. She's  
> ill, she will die. But Egaeus has grown obsessed with her teeth.  
> Her teeth. At the end of the story, he finds a way to appease his  
> passion and pulls out her teeth off her freshly dead corpse (and  
> this happens while he is nearly unconscious, as in a dream). A very  
> gory dentist!
> http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Berenice_%28Poe%29
> Stavrou means the Cross (or better, of the Cross). It is not an  
> uncommon name in Greece. And it goes along pretty well with the  
> other Christian references that I found (the GF building and the  
> workshop both look like a church, the workshop's name, and during  
> the storm at the beginning of the chapter, there was an allusion to  
> Dante's Divine Comedy).
>
> - Tito's limo (a fleet of only one limo?) is one more luxury car,  
> but its make is not mentioned. The funny thing about it is its  
> problem with going in and out (of the workshop, or in the traffic).  
> Here, we don't say that the driver is a bad driver. It is as if the  
> car were independant. Maybe it's just way too long for any manoeuvre.
>
> - Manuel makes a few words sound Spanish: the -ing form becomes - 
> in, and he says limón instead of lemon (slang for a worthless,  
> defective object, especially a car).
>
> - Dom Pérignon is a brand of champagne wine.
>
> - Bentley is a brand of luxury cars.
>
> Clement