Golden Fang

[kelber at mindspring.com]

My own take on the Golden Fang is that it's just another bit of pop culture send-up.

p. 77:  " ... I'm working weeknights at Club Asiatique in San Pedro.  Love and Peace, Jade.  P.S. -- Beware of the Golden Fang!!!"

At this point, you can just imagine the faux-Chinese gong, followed by a quick scene change to CLub Asiatique.

This isn't a veiled reference to a CIA-led conspiracy, it's a Get Smart episode.  Max and 99 find out Agent Fang's been kidnapped and have to go undercover at the Club Asiatique.  Much hilarity ensues, with inscrutable Chinese who talk like hippies, Dragon Ladies in bikinis and conspiratorial dentists ("OK, it's illegal, but, nu, it's a living."

Fang is saved.  Another gong, followed by L&M commercial.  The End.  Pynchon loves to parody faux-Asian cheese (that Chinese damsel-in-distress novel in 
M&D, Dally pretending to be kidnapped by Chinese slavers in ATD, DL getting kidnapped by Japanese slavers in VL). 

http://www.tvacres.com/images/fang_dog4.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L&M

Laura

-----Original Message-----
>From: alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com>

>
>Don Antenen wrote:
>> The idea I'm toying with right now, a week out from my first read of IV, is that the Golden Fang is mostly a distraction from what the LAPD is up to.  > > Reading the book through the lens of 'the Golden Fang doesn't really matter' is sort of interesting, anyway.  That's the fun part of fiction; you can read and reread it so many different ways and make it all 'true'.  Unless you read it the wrong way, of course...
>
>Yeah, the GF is another one of P's anti-conceits.
>
>The text is not a Rorschach. Not merely black spots on a page. There
>are limits to the many different ways it may be read and made "true".
>That is, if we apply a reasonable critical criteria. As MalignD notes,
>the P-List has proven itself resistant to any reasonable criteria for
>the critical assessment of P-Works.
>