V-2nd - 2: Owlglass and Schoenmaker

[Bekah]

Benny has his own issues with inanimate objects.

Is a clock animate or inanimate?

Bekah


On Jun 28, 2010, at 12:21 PM, kelber at mindspring.com wrote:

>
> In our first meeting with Rachel, we learned that she was a spoiled  
> Jewish rich girl (what's unhappily known as a JAP) who was so  
> enamored of her flashy car that she was (apparently) having sex with  
> it.
>
> In Chapter 2, our first glance of Rachel again ties her to the  
> inanimate:
>
> "Her high heels hit precise and neat each time on the X's of the  
> grating in the middle of the mall."
>
> Kind of robot-like, no?
>
> Compare her to Paola, later in the chapter.  Paola leaves Rachel a  
> note consisting of a list of proper nouns, in lieu of a party  
> invitation.  Rachel thinks:
>
> "Nothing but proper nouns.  The girl lived proper nouns.  Persons,  
> places.  No things.  Had anyone told her about things?"
>
> But there's more to Rachel.  When we join her at Schoenmaker's,  
> she's got depth:  intellect, compassion, principles.  Leaving aside  
> her musings about mirrors in the waiting room for now, her argument  
> with Schoenmaker runs counter to the previous Rachel-as-robotic  
> view.  She's opposed to nose jobs (though her compassionate nature  
> leads her to support Esther's decision), and she has no qualms about  
> confronting Schoenmaker.
>
> The name Schoenmaker is pretty heavy-handed for a plastic surgeon,  
> but whence the name Shale?  Pynchon making a joke about the heavy- 
> handedness of his other name?  It's neither a German nor Jewish  
> name.  Does it imply that Schoenmaker's medium isn't flesh, but  
> stone?  Does his work last forever?
>
> Meanwhile, Schoenmaker's making the opposite argument to Rachel.   
> His work, he says, is only skin deep.  It has no lasting effects on  
> the genome (or germ plasm, as 1963 Pynchon calls it).
>
> Rachel, in contrast to that object-loving side we've seen of her,  
> argues for the psychological, the metaphysical.  Schoenmaker changes  
> people inside, she argues.  He passes on an attitude outside the  
> germ plasm.  She's just been contemplating the worlds inside and  
> outside of the mirror in the waiting room, and so struggles with the  
> metaphor.  Schoenmaker notes this, and tries to dismiss her view:   
> "Inside, outside ... you're being inconsistent, you lose me."
>
> Rachel comes across as a warm, passionate, living thing here.  Think  
> of the name Owl-glass:  living/inanimate, soft/hard, warm/cold.   
> Maybe she comes across as rigid on the outside, but inside is a  
> feeling, emotional human being - the opposite of a clockwork  
> orange.  She's aware of the lure of the inanimate, but she's  
> fighting it tooth and nail.  That's why Benny likes her.  In fact,  
> she's fighting against the determinism of her upbringing.  Nice  
> Jewish girls are supposed to get a smattering of education so that  
> they can converse with the nice Jewish Good Providers it's their  
> mission to snare. Rachel's hanging out with the Whole Sick Crew  
> instead.  Not one doctor or dentist in the bunch.
>
> Laura
>