GR translation: Closet Intellectual Book & candycane control room

[kelber at mindspring.com]

The Closet Intellectual Book, as it's described, sounds as if it's a low-brow book meant to be passed off, via the cover, as something more high-brow.

Coincidentally, the NY Public Library just opened its erotica collection to the public. Among its attractions, which include an extensive porn magazine collection, a first edition of Lolita and some explicit pencil sketches of Faulkner having sex with his girlfriend, there are porn books disguised with covers making them look like sociological studies.

In this NY Times video about the collection, these faux-intellectual tomes are described at 0.45 seconds in:

http://nyti.ms/1UjI7q9

Laura

-----Original Message-----

From: Mike Jing 

Sent: Jan 2, 2016 2:00 AM

To: Pynchon Mailing List 

Subject: GR translation: Closet Intellectual Book & candycane control room



V680.25-35, P693.33-694.3   Maximilian is way down in the bottom of the orchestra pit posing as the C-melody saxophone player, complete with Closet Intellectual Book, The Wisdom of the Great Kamikaze Pilots, with illustrations by Walt Disney—screaming, hairy-nosed, front teeth in white dihedral, slant-eyed (long, elaborate curlicued shapes) round black licorice dognosed Japs, zoomin’ through ev’ry page! and any time he’s not playing that saxophone, you can be sure Maximilian will be, to the casual observer, immersed in this diffuse, though rewarding, work. Myrtle meantime is back in the candycane control room, manning the switchboard and ready to swoop in at any time to save the others, who are sure (through their own folly if nothing else) to be in deep trouble soon.

1. Is the purpose of the Closet Intellectual Book to hide the fact that one is actually an intellectual?

2. What is a "candycane control room"?
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