IVIV: Penny Kimball and f**king the powers that be

[Mark Kohut]

I read the line "Months?" after the quick "years ago" as Doc sorta joking
that in his feelings it, maybe, ain't over yet.......

We know from th eopening chapter that he has not seel her literally in over a year.

and then we know what happens later although doc is not to get a notion, from it, that they are back together. 

--- On Mon, 9/14/09, John Bailey <sundayjb at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: John Bailey <sundayjb at gmail.com>
> Subject: IVIV: Penny Kimball and f**king the powers that be
> To: "Pynchon Liste" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Date: Monday, September 14, 2009, 5:00 AM
> Doc goes to lunch with Penny Kimball,
> the Deputy DA he's been
> 'seeing'; as already mentioned, the precise nature of the
> relationship
> seems short of 'dating' and Doc himself sees it as a bit of
> a power
> thing - Penny getting some cheap hippie love thrills
> without having to
> actually involve herself with the lifestyle that actually
> entails.
> It's just sex, a surface engagement. She doesn't seem to
> like him,
> certainly doesn't respect him, and that probably goes both
> ways.
> 
> Not too different from Doc's r'ship with Bigfoot...
> 
> This whole idea is amplified by the choice of lunch locale,
> a skid-row
> dive where judges and lawyers go to rub shoulders with
> winos. Penny is
> most definitely on the side of the Powers That Be.
> 
> She immediately begins grilling him courtroom stylee: "Put
> it another
> way... how close *were* you and Shasta Fay Hepworth?" The
> whole
> exchange is written as a witness interrogation.
> 
> This cold tone suggests an ulterior agenda, which might tie
> into the
> upcoming betrayal when Penny delivers Doc to the feds.
> 
> Doc, on the other hand, is still as temporally foggy as
> ever: "It was
> all over with years ago," he said. "Months?"
> 
> Well, which is it? I'm still having trouble sorting the
> novel's
> deliberately vague timeline.
> 
> Note that Shasta's first request to Doc was to get in touch
> with Penny
> et al about the Mickey booby-hatch plot. He says he's been
> calling
> her, but this is the first time he's really followed up on
> Shasta's
> plea. Maybe it's just his reticence to get involved with
> authorities.
>