Newbie needs help with "Gravity's Rainbow"

[Dave Monroe]

On Thu, Mar 3, 2011 at 11:58 PM, Mike Jing <mikezjing at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi! I am new here. And I need some help with Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow. Specifically, I have several questions about the paragraph on page 13 (Penguin 2006 Deluxe Edition):
>
> 1. What is the meaning of "...you're apt now and then to get a bit of lime-green in with your rose, as they say"? Is this an idiom of some sort? Google found no reference except to the novel itself.

Magenta and Green
From: "Coloring Gravity's Rainbow" - Pynchon Notes, #16, Spring 1985
N. Katherine Hayles and Mary B. Eiser

Slothrop's Color Complements: Purple and Green

Already complex, Slothrop's color code becomes ever more complicated
when the two base colors, purple and yellow, begin shifting along
their respective scales. In "Un Perm' au Casino Hermann Goering,"
Slothrop's natural side, previously represented by yellow, shifts
toward green, color of deepest light penetration on the pigment scale.
Thus a new pairing is formed between green and purple (or magenta),
purple still representing Slothrop's synthetic self. Purple and green
are each other's complements, so when they are combined, they
transform into white light. After he "produces" a gaudy orange, green
and yellow handkerchief and gives it to Tantivy, Slothrop is
associated exclusively with green and purple, transforming to white.
These colors also dominate the costume changes Katje uses to seduce
Slothrop. The first day he meets her, Katje's blonde lashes are "full
of acid green (p. 187); later she wears an "emerald tiara" and a "gown
of sea-green velvet" (p. 190). That night before they have sex, she
changes to a dress of pure white. In the morning, Slothrop dons a
purple satin bedsheet in desperate pursuit of his clothes. While
masquerading as the "Great Purple Kite," Slothrop gets stuck in a tree
and is surrounded by green "pungent leaflight" (p. 199). Dressed for
the party chez Raoul de la Perlimpinpin, Slothrop sports a French
green suit with a "subtle" purple check" (p. 224). By the time he
leaves France for "neutral" Switzerland in preparation for the Zone,
Slothrop's outfit has undergone a significant bleaching:

among all the somber street faces and colors only he is wearing white,
shoes zoot 'n' hat, white as the cemetery mountains here... (p. 259)

Slothrop's identification with purple and green may indicate that he
is being transformed into a projected image, because these colors
habitually occur in relation to hallucinated or filmed images. If so,
the collapse of the magenta/green complements into white light can be
understood as the white light shining through a chemically impregnated
celluloid strip that creates the illusion of color in film. In a film
image, the perception of color is twice mediated: first because color
inheres not in the object itself, because its color too is mediated
through the psychophysical processes that comprise color perception).
In addition to suggesting his increasing fragmentation, then, the
purple/green pairing indicates that Slothrop, like a cinematic image,
is receding from us through increasing layers of mediation. The
suggestion prepares for the moment when Slothrop will cease to exist
as anything other than the wave phenomenon that is white light itself,
purveyor of all colors but possessed of none.

(pp. 16-17)

http://inherent-vice.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Magenta_and_Green

http://www.ham.muohio.edu/~krafftjm/pn/pn016.pdf

Magenta and Green

a contrast that Pynchon can hardly leave alone, even to the point of
being self-conscious about it: 12; "you’re apt now and then to get a
bit of lime-green in with your rose, as they say" 69; "Whappo also
sports a bandanna of the regulation magenta and green" 107; "instead
of a magic feather, the humorless green and magenta face of Mr. Ernest
Bevin" 255; "corksoled comicbook shoes with enormous round toes, lotta
that saddle-stitching in contrasting colors (such as orange on blue,
and the perennial favorite, green on magenta)" 749; "THE LAST GREEN
AND MAGENTA" "The Heath grows green and magenta in all directions"
There are also many references to magenta alone.

http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=M

green and magenta

Magenta is a brilliant, purple-red dye extracted from coal-tar and
named after the Battle of Magenta which was fought in 1859 shortly
before the dye was discovered. Green and magenta are complementary
colors. They're also the two colors of the neon title on the Inherent
Vice dustjacket. Pynchon uses these colors frequently in his novels;
"psychedelic favorites" 14; kimono, 107; Liberace's necktie sequins,
220; clouds of dust, 336; Read Katherine Hayles' color analysis, in
relation to Gravity's Rainbow...

http://inherent-vice.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=G#greenmagenta

color

"summer uniform of red-and-white striped blazer and trousers of
sky-blue," "'White City,'" "green," 3; "yellow," 9; "sepia," 10;
"eclipse green," 18; "vivid magenta," 26; "attractive little girl of
four or five with flaming red hair" (Dally), 27; "orange phosphate,"
47; "flowers in bells and clusters, purple and white or yellow as
butter," "red berries," 70; "Red Mountain Pass," 81; "colorless," 109;
"pale blue radiance," 115; Northern Lights' "heavenwide pulses of
color," 121; "red as a cursed ruby," "Blue Ivory," 125; "green ice,"
"sheer green walls of ice, the greenness nearest the water," "green
and yellow," "gray slatework," 127; "vivid cream," "Payne's gray and
Naples yellow," "an unfaded spectrum of tropical colors," 129;
"silver-gray," "sky was more neutral-density gray than blue,"
"shadowless green ... sea-green sea, the ice-green, glass-green sea,"
134; "seas more emerald," "pale grasses, failing by a visible margin
to be green," 137; "glowing a different primary color," "blue
chalk-dust," 140; ""various colors and intensities," "strange
yellowish green," 141; "yellowed glare," 142; "red Zouave-style hats
and trousers," "fire-reddened light," 145; "sombre brown landscapes of
north Canada," 149; "levels of gray," "color, not the fashionable
shades of daytime but blood reds, morgue yellows, poison greens,"
"accuracy of colors," 153; "an abstract array of moving multicolored
lights against a blue, somehow maritime, darkness," 154; "rust-red and
yellowish," 155; "rival school hues," 156; "'crimson' is cognate with
'worm,'" 157; 160; "colors of doubtful taste," "Scarsdale's in gray
tones, Edwarda's in mauve. Puce sometimes," 162; "screamin Red
threat," "a range of colors," 182; "red liquor," 196; "red adobe
towers," 198; "valley fog the same color as the snow," "luminous
shades of gray," 200; "country was so red that the sagebrush appeared
to float above it as in a stereopticon view, almost colorless, pale as
a cloud, luminous day and night," 209; "blue laws," 210; "disturbing
colors," "daytime blue," "aquamarine and mauve," 211; "dark, blood-red
wall," 214; "mossy greens," "the Order of the Golden Dawn;" 219;
"mauve," "pale blue", 226; "silver-streaked," 227; "'pinky,'" 233;
"queer purple liquid that Lew could swear was glowing,"," 234; "violet
dusk," "luminous green liquids," 235; "purple," "logwood," "vivid,
unmistakable turquoise," 236; "red-clay chimneys," "ancient
sepia...more optimistic red," 243; "'Purple Thanksgiving,'" "white and
red vini frizzanti," "'Red blood,'" 247; "pale blue albatross cloth,"
266; "Sloat was partial to the color green," "shade of green," "'never
could see green, bein a mauve man myself,'" "blood-red dirt," 269;
"vivid red," 297; "multicolored flashes of light," 322; "lighter
colors," 337; "aquamarine," 340; "suit of acid magenta and saffron"
342; Erlys? 347; "wine-colored plush," "orange Tiffany orchid brooches
vivid as flames," 348; "Congo violet" 349; "gray," "Red" (nickname for
Dally), "blindingly pomaded gray hair and a gigantic emerald ring on
his pinky," 350; "perfect black velvet and multicolored silk brocade,"
351; "Sunsets tended to be purple firestorms, with blinding orange
streaks running through," 364; "Madame Aubergine," "scarlet", 367;
"silver and lapis," 368; "the Red Onion," "the red-light district,"
371; "green volcanic islands," 372; "red-brown mountainside," 377;
"brown," 380; "silver," 381; "earth tones," 384; "indigo," 386; "red
bandannas," 390; "peculiar colors," 392; "whirling colors including
magenta, low-brilliancy turquoise, and a peculiarly pale, wriggling
violet," 394; "checked in indigo and custard yellow, topped off with
pearl-gray bowlers," 399; "bluish electric lights blooming," 401;
"violent blue sparks," 402; "color-coded tickets of identification,"
"patriotically colored Smegmo crock," "dark brown light," 408;
"reddish liquid," "magenta-and-green aura," 410; "apricot and
aquamarine," 412; "Chinese red and indigo," 418; "sunny verdigris
campus," "green mist of budding," "closely maintained white mustache
and gold teeth," "red sweatshirts bearing the golden crest of the
Academy," 421; "green fields," "moistly violet," 422; "'don't be blue,
pal,'" 424; "succession of colors," 434; "red-brown color," 439;
"unearthly green," 443; "shiny green suit," 445; "yellow,"
"lemon-white neon," "purple clover," 451; "biblically lurid
yellow-gray," 452; yellowish, 455; "red whiskey," 462; "blue
Excelsior," 464; heliotrope, 493; green, white and mauve, 501;
Coronation Red, 497; claret and blue, 503; indigoes and aquas, 526;
Chinese red, 526; blue, taupe, Chinese red, 532; "analine teal and a
bright though sour orange" 533; 537; pale violet, 544; taupe and
damaged rose, 551; 568; duck-green, 574; Jesus, 580; 584; 585;
orpiment yellow, scarlet vermilion, Nürnberg violet, 586; 608; Foley
Walker's suit, 619; 625; green and magenta, 633; 689; 715; 742; 795;
796; "seaweed-green suit" 833; "black that rests at the heart of all
color" 835; 846; "some shade of heliotrope" 867; primaries, 924;
fuschia, 1042; acid-yellow, 1073;

See also, N. Katherine Hayles and Mary B. Eiser's article, "Coloring
Gravity's Rainbow," originally published in Pynchon Notes, Vol. 16,

http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=C

U. s. w., et soforthiam.  Hope that, uh, helps!