IVIV20: Moving faster than Doc had ever seen him, 354-357

[Joseph Tracy]

On Jan 15, 2010, at 12:15 AM, Paul Nightingale wrote:

> 20.1 appears transitional, from the departure of Bigfoot at the end  
> of Ch19
> to the renewal of the Golden Fang plotline in 20.2.
>
> On 354 Doc is discovered waiting, as so often, reactive rather than
> proactive, to be involved in the action (as Gilligan to Sauncho's  
> Skipper).
I have a hard time seeing Doc as particularly passive, though I do  
see some connection between passivity and pot. He has actively  
pursued many leads( Coy, Boards, Sloane Wolfmann, Vegas, Arpanet,  
Bigfoot, Ouija board address, Vigilant Cal, El Drano, Adrian)) at  
many levels and invented characters to penetrate the worlds of   
Mickey Wolfmann and of the Golden Fang.  He frequently has evidence ,  
yet looks for more confirming evidence.This seems almost scientific,  
and at least very  legally and logically thorough.
>
> Doc-&-Sauncho is offered as an alternative to Doc-&-Bigfoot; when  
> Doc is
> arrested in Ch2, Sauncho appears in counterpoint to Bigfoot. The  
> Golden Fang
> is associated with Sauncho after his "strangely evasive" response  
> to Doc's
> question on 89; a couple of pages later he tells Doc "his firm ...  
> ha[s]
> been keenly, almost desperately, curious about the Golden Fang for  
> a while
> now" (91), which might explain why, relating the boat's history, he  
> can tie
> Mickey Wolfmann to it (93). Sauncho's first appearance (26-29)  
> might lead us
> to question his competence; viewed from Doc's pov he might appear as
> threatening as Bigfoot. Subsequent reference to The Golden Fang  
> (89-91)
> introduces a note of mystery, again from Doc's pov. Moreoever, his
> "fantasies" (91) echo Doc's own yearning for status.
Agreed, though he does seem more completely mesmerized by the GF boat  
fantasy than Doc by his Private Eye fantasy. The maritime law firm's  
interest in the GF seems to point at the relation between the legal  
profession and predatory capitalism. Justice vs profit, and law as an  
arena for the balance of powers, but still with money as the all  
pervasive motive.

One reason I like Sauncho is his Charly the Tuna rant. He may dream  
of owning a yacht , may even by implication secretly want a part of  
the GF action, but he hates the idea of accepting a low status on the  
food chain, does not accept the aspiration to be canned and marketed  
by corporate interests. Is the rule of law still a revolutionary goal?
>
> Down the page on 354, another kind of reading. Viewed from the ocean,
> Gordita Beach appears "in a spill of weather-beaten colors, like  
> paint chips
> at some out-of-the-way hardware store, and the hillside up to  
> Dunecrest ...
> looking from out here strangely flat, hardly there at all". The  
> loss of
> perspective indicated here is both painterly and reminiscent of the  
> earlier
> (two-dimensional) "glittering mosaic of doubt" (351). To emphasise  
> Doc's
> impressionistic reading: ". like paint chips". The extreme close-up  
> and the
> long shot are equally evasive.
>
> On 356, the Golden Fang finally coming into view, Doc notes  
> Sauncho's look,
> one of "pure unrequited love"; this obsession recalls Bigfoot, who has
> returned in flashback, courtesy of "Sauncho's old  
> binoculars" (355). Here,
> Doc imagines Bigfoot "at the outset of his career", contradicting the
> parting view of Bigfoot on 350, Doc suppressing any thought of the  
> "weird
> twisted cop karma" and "what [Bigfoot] thought he needed to know"  
> in favour
> of the "young cop" on 355. Now that Bigfoot has departed Doc  
> reverses time
> much as he did when parting from Shasta (the "fool's attempt" on 314).

One of the questions this brought up for me and something that stays  
unresolved is the question Doc asks himself, "Forget who-what was he  
working for anymore?" , applied to Bigfoot. What motivates this guy?  
We see the status, the tough and pragmatic survival ethic. But who  
and what is the goal of his pursuit of the GF and the heroin  
traffickers and his partner's killers?

Is there a Cop ethic that is more than the cartoon tool of the  
dominant powers Pynchon has often portrayed ? This guy is not Brock  
Vond.