V-2nd - Chapter V, Part I

[alice wellintown]

kelber wrote:

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.

certainly the colonialization and enocide theme is continued here with
the priest and the rats, but the inanimate theme is bound to it as,
although the chapter title sez Stencil goes West, Benny goes East,
carrying, from the West, the Light and the Gun. Africa, of course, is
East; so the Heart of Darkness Ivory theme here, and yes, Moby-Dick
parody--the sharkskin suits, the labor organizations, the bums. The
long description of the bum with a cadilac, another Jew, from Poland
is intersting.