V-2nd - Chapter V, Part I

[kelber at mindspring.com]

Don't know if Joseph Tracy's able to take on his hosting duties.  In the meantime ...

Chapter V, Part I contains the most oft-referenced section of the book:  the alligator hunt.  

Here's a web site exclusively devoted to all things alligator-in-the-sewer:

http://www.sewergator.com/

Like the Esther's nose-job sequence, it seems kind of written to stand on its own.  And there's not much here about the clash between the human and the inanimate.  Instead, Pynchon's introducing a theme that's going to become a major one later in the book (Chapter 9 - descriptions of the Herero Massacre)and throughout the rest of his works:  colonization, leading to genocide.

Here's a priest (and "At no point ... did it occur to anyone to question the old priest's sanity")intent on converting those who cannot or will not be converted.  And, as it goes in such situations, unless the locals renounce their culture and convert to their conquerors' "faith," there's nothing left but to hunt them down and shoot them.  Enter Profane, foot soldier in an imperialist war against rodent and reptile alike. One can argue (all right, I'm arguing) that Christian missionaries, bibles-in-hand, have been as destructive a force in decimating local cultures as their military brothers-in-arms.

This is the beginnings of Pynchon's method of eloquently underplaying the horrific to make a gut-wrenching point.  

MB
DRO
ROSHI,

indeed.

Laura