V2nd - Chapter 10 Slab, why won't he sleep with Esther

[kelber at mindspring.com]

Why?  Because she's emotionally needy and guys, especially would-be hipster guys like Slab, don't like to commit.  Bigger question:  Why DOES Benny sleep with Rachel?  (to be answered when we get there, but probably symbolizes some embrace, on his part, of the inanimate - in his mind she's always been bi[enjoying sex with both the human and the inanimate].

Laura


-----Original Message-----
>From: Michael Bailey <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com>
>Sent: Nov 11, 2010 11:24 AM
>To: P-list <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>Subject: V2nd - Chapter 10 Slab, why won't he sleep with Esther
>
>is it possible that he was offended by her plastic surgery and her
>sexual submission to Schoenmaker?
>
>page 330 (Harper Perennial) "after a memorable party a year ago at
>Raoul, his and Melvin's, a night he and Esther broke up"  well the
>timing isn't right, it was a whole year ago, so August 1955
>- but there must've been some passion between them, back then, to
>drive him into yoyoing and then celibacy
>
>
>
>other oddments:
>
>Roony jumping on top of the espresso machine.  Probably symbolic, but of what?
>"...sat manipulating the taps with his toes"  (p 329)
>
>
>an itinerant race-driver named Murray Sable (328) while Profane is
>speaking on the phone with Rachel.
>The girl with him rolled away.
>"On her back began half a dream dialogue."    - Huh?  Profane's
>dialogue with Rachel, but he's also looking in on the scene and
>imagining a dialogue with the girl, like with Shroud?
>
>
>
>
>-- 
>"Such regulations may, no doubt, be considered as in some respects a
>violation of natural liberty. But those exertions of the natural
>liberty of a few individuals, which might endanger the security of the
>whole society, are, and ought to be, restrained by the laws of all
>governments, of the most free as well as of the most despotical." -
>Adam Smith