Re: IVIV: chapter seven—Eel Trovatore

[John Bailey]

"Is she young?  Old? What color her hair? Is she fat? Thin?"

I can't think of five Pynchon characters to which I could provide
answers to each of those questions. I'm sure there are a handful or
more but it's sure not why I read the stuff.

On the other hand, it struck me this morning that almost every
physical description in IV is sort of artificial - either someone's
clothing or their choice of hairstyle (often coloured or at least
likely so) or tattoos or bodybuilding. Exceptions include Tariq and
Jade. Plus we can guess that Doc's pretty short.

What the hell does Slothrop look like? Who cares?

On Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 1:56 PM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
>
> On Sep 23, 2009, at 7:46 PM, malignd at aol.com wrote:
>
>> You're right.  I hadn't considered the waitress in light of the
>> unconscious with Leej and Vehi.  Or that eating a bad meal, or any meal, was
>> about internalizing and coping.
>>
>
> People eat weird stuff in dreams.  Jungians say it's about integrating the
> material represented in the symbolism/reference of the thing eaten. Every
> story is a kind of dream and in this chapter Larry is headed into a deep
> dreamstate, which is the nature of his hallucinogenic journey. This meal
> with Sauncho served by Chlorinda is the  prelude to that scene and
> contributes to setting it up along with the conversation  with Fritz about
> Shasta and in Wavos about Lemuria. The imagery is all about the deep blue
> see/a. Besides the devil ray fillet and the jellyfish teriyaki croqettes ,
> there are other indications of bad shit in the ocean with the tar on the
>  beaches and the Golden Fang's drops. It forms a picture of trouble,
> toxicity, lust and violence under the surface of the  suburbia, Beach Boys
> and Gilligans Island culture.    .  Note that over at wavos the surfers are
> not eating fish but are eating health waffles and vegetarian soup. Zucky's
> was a real deli and the food is somewhere in between.
>
> To me the 3 restaurants are a refrain of a pattern I saw in ATD.  Where the
> story has 3 main levels: 1) the real world and real people ( Chicago world
> fair, Tesla, WW 1, Tunguska)which affect everything in the story . In IV the
> real  is Zuckys', the music, Vietnam, the arpanet, CIA, defense industries
> on the beach, level 2) relatively normal fictional characters and plausible
> if unlikely events and lives( Traverses, Yashmeen, Cyprian,) who live in he
> real world and interact with it and more rarely with mythofictional reality.
>  3)  pure mythos ( The Chums, the time travelers , hollow earth, the
> northern beast, the under sand  device), the time lapse photography . In IV
> this mythical place is occupied more sparsely than ATD ( Lemuria, Bermuda
> Triangle, Alien planets, along with silly shit  like Gilligan's Island, but
> everything is infected with this stuff on some level.
>
> In Jung , and obviously  this notion goes far beyond him, remembered  dreams
> and art are a dimension between mythos and daily life, the conscious and
> unconscious. Nothing new there. But most writers try to occupy  the
> realistic descriptive,  or the plausible fictive with nuanced influence from
> the real and the mythic, or the imaginary mythic. But TRP fully activates
> reifies and juggles all 3. Nothing is diminished . Everything is treated
> with a kind democracy of consciousness.
>
> Anyway that is what I see, and approaching Pynchon this way frees the reader
> from a sense of being taken in and manipulated.  If the symbolism, actions
> or references  don't cohere into a revelation it isn't because we are being
> had or don't get it . It is because the author is only human,  like many of
> us. Neither the whole nor any part  of the terrain explored can be fully and
> adequately represented in words, but by seeing and representing the layers
> without favor of one over the other.  the author invites an active and
> interactive metaliterary  reading, which , at least for this reader is still
> engaging and enjoyable.
>
> A few nights ago I read The Road and it was gripping, visceral and spare
> prose of the highest order. But with all of McCarthy I am asked both to feel
> and believe a world. I can feel it but I can never believe it. With Pynchon
> I am not asked to believe, but to read skeptically, thoughtfully, amusedly.
> The wild diversity and intellectual passion  of critical response tells me,
> not that the "real meaning " is impenetrable, but that the reader is as
> important a component as the writer in the making of any worthwhile meaning.
>
>
>