AtD: Lew,a moral center

[Michael Bailey]

 rich wrote:

> if im not mistaken, lew rapes lake or thats how I read it
>
>

yeah, it was Lew, not Merle, that's right!

rereading, a lot depends on imputing a certain throaty tone to "come on in"
(p1051), and thinking about it later he's somewhat amazed too (and so
should *we* be, because we've been thru 1000 pages with this guy and he
never did anything like that in front of us, even that weird crime in the
beginning can't have been anything they actually put you away for, because
they didn't hesitate to put people away in Chicago in the Gay 90s),

but when she says "You ain't fallin asleep back there, I hope" (1052( and
makes him coffee...is that how a victim of rape behaves?  she's a tough
cookie a-and she doesn't seem ruffled or offended, afterwards...

she certainly could have made a case, but, well, she didn't.

Still, it'd be crazy to think that a given reader of the passage could
expect to get away with something like that.

Or that reading it would make anyone want to...

Inspiring imitation or glorifying rape is no part of Pynchon's vision - the
scene is more the sort of imaginary identification he elicits in GR
inviting us to share Pointsman's fantasies (or are they memories) of
picking up children at a bus stop for nefarious purposes...

that said, there's a part of my mind, a part that doesn't often get a vote,
that sometimes would be pleased if an attractive stranger overcame my
reticence physically, and I don't believe it's completely impossible that
I'm not the only one who ever had such thoughts... -- again, that part
doesn't get a vote, like a convicted felon in Florida...

so that my parting thought on the scene, more righteously, is that her life
is so messed up, maybe that's the best thing that happened to her all day
-- but it doesn't make it right...
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