BtZ42 pages 116-121

[Joseph Tracy]

Overlaps, refrains, improvisation. The old woman with the pig story is about appetite, technology and going from and to home: her money is crooked , her hunger is fatty meat, her dilemna in retrieving domestic tanquility( the kind  with meat) is technical and humorously complex and involves more crookedness. The old woman/witch/candy story is about appetite, technology, and the precariousness of home that is surveilled and threatened by war and loss. 
 I didn’t recall the scene of TS’s ancestor driving a pig.  Reference anyone?
The fairy tale pig woman seems to represent resilience and determination of ordinary people in getting ordinary comforts but also seems to indicate how extraordinarily complex  and perhaps morally iffy animal husbandry can get. The pig choice is clearly deliberate as TS’s identification with pigs becomes a major theme.  One pig theme is the dual role pigs have of wildness and domestication. Domestication has the implication of comfort and safety, but not for the pig. 

The candies place the technology and complexity in the appetite itself. There seems to be question lurking about imperial appetites, perhaps the chemistry based creation of new and strange appetites.


> On Jun 29, 2016, at 1:23 PM, kelber at mindspring.com wrote:
> 
> Coming right after the Hansel-and-Gretel/Oven/Holocaust connections of the previous section, this section seems to continue the connections, in terms of poisonous candy. Whether the nasty chemicals in the candy are a Holocaust reference (see: Charles Hollander: http://www.ottosell.de/pynchon/jokespuns.htm) or not, there's no escaping the fact that this is one of the funniest sections in the book. 
> 
> More witchery and fairy tale stuff:
> 
> "The old woman's arrangement for getting the pig home over the stile." Weisenberger refers us to The Old Woman and the Crooked Sixpence, via Clouston, and onward, back to the Kabala and the number ten. The fable, recounted, seems to be out wartime bureaucracy, on a superficial level (Slothrop dealing with the bureaucracy of the White Visitation), but it's a gruesome tale of murder and coercion driven by an old woman/witch who's driving a pig along, much as Tyrone's ancestor did.
> 
> "'You came back! Ah, Tyrone, you're back', a tear or two …" Does anyone else read this as a little Wizard-of-Oz-like? Darlene/Dorothy, with her basket, soon to return to the upstairs room of  Mrs. Quoad, the self-described witch.
> 
> This section details the start of Tyrone's paranoia. He senses he's being followed (you kind of wonder why Pointsman and Co. didn't do that immediately, instead of altering the field experiment by putting him in a lab). Whoever's watching gets an instant payoff - erection coincides with V-2. Bingo!
> 
> Laura
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> >From: Eileen Pierce 
> >Sent: Jun 28, 2016 6:29 AM
> >To: pynchon -l 
> >Cc: Eileen Pierce 
> >Subject: BtZ42 pages 116-121
> >
> >They’ve cut Slothrop loose again, he wanders, seeking places the followers might not follow. Released from St. Veronica’s, he is reunited with Darlene from St. Veronica's. Then tea and candies with Mrs. Quoad. (Ha!)
> >
> >"The Meggezone is like being belted in the head with a Swiss Alp. Menthol icicles immediately begin to grow from the roof of Slothrop’s mouth. Polar bears seek toenail-holds up the freezing frosty-grape alveolar clusters in his lungs. It hurts his teeth too much to breathe, even through his nose, even necktie loosened, with his nose down inside the neck of his olive-drab T-shirt. Benzoin vapors seep into his brain. His head floats in a halo of ice.” (Wow.)
> >
> >Slothrop in bed with Darlene, “hunting across the zero between waking and sleep”. Mrs. Quoad is in the parlor dreaming of the King’s hand on her neck. (Huh?) Rocket and erection. All the while, watched from behind the orange shade.
> >
> >Thank you p-listers for this fascinating group read. I look forward to reading your thoughts on this section. Enjoy the day! e
> >
> >
> >Eileen Pierce
> >608-512-6451
> >
> >
> >
> >-
> >Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
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