AtD: Lew,a moral center

[Paul Mackin]

For what it's worth, I remember it as being quite consensual, but it's 
been a long time.

P

On 2/23/2012 10:28 AM, Michael Bailey wrote:
>
>  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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