IVIV20: Once or twice, 352

[Mark Kohut]

So, rereading all that Paul puts together here and trying to think in high 'lit crit' mode, some academic will write on "inherent vice" = Time
or 'the passing of time", yes?

--- On Tue, 1/12/10, Paul Nightingale <isread at btinternet.com> wrote:

> From: Paul Nightingale <isread at btinternet.com>
> Subject: IVIV20: Once or twice, 352
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Date: Tuesday, January 12, 2010, 11:49 PM
> Watching TV allows Doc to imagine his
> parents (352), just as, on the
> previous page, the "glittering mosaic of doubt" (351)
> allowed him to imagine
> Sauncho. Absent, his parents can be located in time and
> place by the TV
> schedules, although what follows will disturb his confident
> assumption that
> they can be taken for granted.
> 
> Elmina tells him of Gilroy's latest promotion (352),
> sending us back to
> Gilroy's first appearance, so to speak, as "the one with
> the life,
> operations manager for whatever, grandkids and acreage and
> so forth" (112).
> Here, Elmina's account of life with the "lulu" is followed
> by reference to
> "that pretty Shasta Fay Hepworth" (352). At this late
> stage, then, we
> discover that Gilroy doesn't really feature as a role model
> for Doc; the
> career is undermined by a failure to provide Elmina with a
> daughter-in-law
> she might approve of. So it seems Doc's relationship with
> Shasta might have
> given   him something of an advantage over
> his brother, all of which takes
> us back to the surprise visit in 8.2: "Elmina wasted no
> time in bringing up
> the subject of Shasta Fey, whom she'd met once and taken to
> right away"
> (114).
> 
> The third visit to "the gateway to the past" (351) in a
> couple of pages,
> then, this phone call following Farley's enlargements and
> the flashback
> conversation with Sauncho. We recall that the narrative
> began with Shasta's
> appearance as performance, coming in "the way she always
> used to" but
> "looking just like she swore she'd never look" (1): this is
> me now
> pretending (but failing) to be me then. This meeting
> provides the first
> indication that Doc is sensitive to his status ("I have an
> office now") as
> well as threatened by an alternative pov. If he fears
> Bigfoot's power to
> bust him, he is certainly uncomfortable when looking at his
> home through
> Shasta's eyes on 4.
> 
> More recently, Shasta has reappeared on 261, the passage in
> question echoing
> her appearance on 1, itself an echo of something called
> 'the past': "...
> same getup, same carefree attitude, as if she still hadn't
> even met Mickey
> Wolfmann ..." etc (262). Later, Doc goes to visit her at
> Flip's, the writing
> on 303 reversing her approach to him on 1.
> 
> On 262, of course, our confidence in the "same getup" is
> undermined somewhat
> by the earlier "near as Doc could tell ..." etc (261). The
> section begins
> with Doc looking in vain for "anything new about the
> Wolfman case"; the
> story's disappearance from the news media is then succeeded
> by Doc reading
> Shasta's image as one that undoes the narrative thus far. A
> few lines down
> her "that's all over" (262) seems to confirm that Doc's
> quest is over.
> Whatever his ongoing interest in Shasta, it seems the
> investigation into
> Mickey Wolfmann's affairs/disappearance has only ever been
> on Shasta's
> behalf. As a PI Doc might resemble Shasta's T-shirt, or
> even Mickey's trophy
> ties; he is hardly a 'truthfinding machine'.
> 
> On 306, "look[ing] for telltale zombie symptoms", Doc
> concludes "it seemed
> like the same old Shasta". That section (17.2) then ends
> with Doc
> "follow[ing] the prints of her bare feet already collapsing
> into rain and
> shadow, as if in a fool's attempt to find his way back into
> a past that
> despite them both had gone on into the future it did"
> (314). This "fool's
> attempt" prefigures the opening of Ch20, "the gateway to
> the past unguarded,
> unforbidden because it didn't have to be" (351).
> 
>