BTZ42: Albert's Mother in a fur boa?

[Mark Kohut]

I love the full ratcheting up of the 'real life' details into the
overarching meaning
within the novel....such as 'before he switched to chemistry'.....from
psychological
determinism to chemical, more basic, more total, I daresay and, of course,
the real life
way the treatment of our mental illness/health moved in these United States
over
decades ......
if TRP could only have had a real example way to
then move to neuroscience.....

On Tue, Jun 7, 2016 at 3:45 PM, Smoke Teff <smoketeff at gmail.com> wrote:

> "Back around 1920, Dr. LaszloJamf opined that if Watson and Rayner could
> successfully condition their 'Infant Albert' into a reflex horror of
> everything furry, even of his own Mother in a fur boa[...]"
>
> From what I've read online, sounds like this is embellishment on Pynchon's
> part--I read that Watson/Raynor did condition Albert "into a reflex horror"
> of his mother's fur, but not exactly of *her in it*. Anybody know
> anything to the contrary?
>
> I will say that something about the original phrasing--maybe also the
> capitalization?--makes me think of the Ouroboros, and then of course Kekulé
> (whose alleged dream of the Ouroboros reveals the structure of benzene)
> gets mentioned just a few lines later on this page.
>
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