Re: IVIV: chapter seven—Eel Trovatore

[Tore Rye Andersen]

John Bailey:

> I knew he had a fat stomach - like Benny Profane and Dixon. It's an
> endearing common trait for a writer who by all accounts is pretty
> lanky.
 
"Slothrop wakes again to the white room. The quiet. Raises his ass and
does a few feeble bicycle exercises, then lies slapping on new flab
that must've collected on his stomach while he was out. There is an
invisible kingdom of flab, a million cells-at-large, and they all know 
who he is - soon as he's unconscious, they start up, every one, piping
in high horrible little Mickey Mouse voices, hey fellas! hey c'mon, 
let's all go over to Slothrop, the big sap ain't doing anything but
laying on his ass, c'mon, oboy! "Take that," Slothrop mutters, "a-and
that!"" (GR, 392-93)
 
A-and:
 
"Now the white lanterns come crowding around Tyrone Slothrop, bobbing
in the dark. Tiny fingers prod his stomach.
   "You're the fattest man in the world."
   "He's fatter than anyone in the village."
   "Would you? Would you?"
   "I'm not *that* fat --" (GR, 568)
 
As you say, pretty endearing. FWIW, I've always taken Pynchon's 
description of the canteloupe-loving Perdoo as a covert self-portrait:
 
"this slightly bucktoothed and angular American, who is dancing now 
from stoop to English stoop, lank as a street-puppet in the wind." 
(GR, 271)
  		 	   		  
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