AtD: Lew,a moral center

[rich]

that whole bit in LA in the end is very strange
not sure how it all fits or if it fits at all--
beyond that weird rape scene is Deuce--i wasnt crazy about him turning from
a badass into some whining wheezy moron but then he turns into a serial
killer? its all rather much

rich

On Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 12:09 PM, Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at verizon.net>wrote:

>  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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