More of a Reading of Lew Basnight, pt. 2

[Joseph Tracy]

Couple three observations. 1)Dueuce doesn't keep his impunity.  
Deuce's comeuppance is implied when Lew is conversing with a friend  
of the mexican woman  who is Deuce's last victim.  She tells Lew  
there are eyewitnesses to the killing and the police are on their way  
to pick Deuce up.   2) The sex between Lew and Lake  is a game, her  
pleasure coming from the only roles she knows-victim and  temptress/ 
provocateur, her only escapes from the boredom of mindless bondage.  
Lew seems more engaged in the risk-taking aspect of the encounter,  
and getting as it were the lay of the land 3) Lake in general:   
Interesting that several TP women are identified with the american  
landscape - Shasta, Prairie, Lake   Lake is the most passive, hiding  
in her beauty and vulnerability a dumping ground for the country's  
toxic secrets.  Of all the Traverse childrens' reactions to Webbs  
killing hers is the most bitter. Injured by her father she identifies  
unnaturally with his killers , is bonded to the the lowlife thugs of  
the Empire and spends her life getting fucked in every direction.

Extra freebie - buy 3 get one free-  I find something mildly hopeful  
about the sex between Lew and Lake.Lew represents an ecape from the  
bad girl /good girl, lost/saved  mindset that dominates Lake.  While  
rough, basically it is a mutually non-hurtful and non possessive  
game , which is a notch up from the emotional bondage, abuse and  
degradation that is juicing the previous sex.  This and the fact that  
Deuce is about to go down means change is possible for Lake.  Not  
exactly a shining door of hope, but  there it is.


On Feb 28, 2010, at 3:26 PM, Michael Bailey wrote:

>  rich wrote:
>> Lew's sexual sin?  that rather weird meeting with Lake at the end  
>> of the
>> novel--is it rape? I found it inexplicable
>>
>
> Thanks, rich, I just reread that part.
>
> Funny, I had a different memory that didn't involve the rough sex.
> I'm still inclined, because of the dreamlike nature of the scene,
> to see Lew's taking of her as a reverie, but that's hard to support.
>
> Just as I'm inclined to think that Deuce's expectation of the "real"
> authorities coming to supersede the young investigators who have
> caught him is his own psychotic break rather than the true expectation
> of a "connected" villain that he will be released - sort of like  
> Aarfy in
> Catch-22 - although, come to think of it, "good old Aarfy"'s hopes  
> are realized.
> I'm just saying I think that it's obvious Deuce is so far gone
> that he might not know the difference anymore, but (just like Webb's
> giving up on official law enforcement and going in for vigilantism
> isn't meant to sanction this viewpoint, imho, but to depict it...)
> Deuce's viewpoint isn't necessarily meant to reflect what's "really
> going on" (or is it???)
>
> Dystopians among us, I'm sure, will take these episodes at face  
> value -
> Lew's non-consensual sex with Lake, Deuce's impunity for serial  
> killing -
> as Pynchon's statements about the corruption of our society, but I  
> tend
> to want to soften that.
>
> First, Lake is so deeply depressed, in a fugue state, that one doubts
> that she cares much - although her protestations are enough to stop
> the Lew-that-I-had-thought-he-was...
> secondly, I think our last glimpse of her is in a dream that is like
> the kind of dream that a movie heroine wakes from to find herself
> with child...
> which (besides being tied in to the crypto-Catholicism I sometimes
> sniff - this being the sort of, well, ideal situation where the Church
> could champion rape-generated babies: Lake has
> always wanted a baby, ie, a-and this is the ONLY way (if we assume
> that Deuce's the source of the wanting seed and that Lake is too
> proper to ever cheat on him - don't kill me, I'm just sayin'...))
> ties into the rise of the movie industry ... and sort of how the  
> movies
> supplant books as the source of popular mythology ... so in the
> MOVIE of AtD, the rape scene would be softened down to a seduction,
> and lo, she would conceive and bear a child!
>
> which also ties into the Chums getting that commission to go to
> Hollywood - in fact maybe they (the Chums) are the earnest young  
> people who
> are questioning Deuce -
> just as movies are allowed to question authority, but in cold reality,
> the "motorcycles without mufflers" that will arrive bearing the  
> "real" cops
> who will spring Deuce...
>
> so I guess I prefer the dream...point being that the dream is what
> sustains us, like that Chums book Reef reads in jail...
>
> anyway, thanks for opening that discussion up - now I've got to
> unfasten or I'll spend the next 36 hours reading sections of AtD
> and I have "meatspace" activities that take precedence...
>
> Happy Sunday everyone!
>
> -- 
> -- "the problem with the deployment of frictionless surfaces is
> that they're not getting traction."