BEg2 chapter 4 - retrieving Jan wig bobble

[Mark Kohut]

Maxine is the anchored moral center of the novel, flawed as her own
"morals' intentionally are.
She can catch fraud everywhere. Therefore Shawn is an airhead, which she
kindly did not want to actually say.
That matters for the interpretation of what he sees and says.
Therefore......

On Tue, Nov 16, 2021 at 10:53 PM Michael Bailey <
michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com> wrote:

> - yesterday I didn’t catch
> ““I’ve always been more of a Jan-gets-a-wig person myself,” Maxine was once
> careless enough to admit.”
>
> This is analepsis, not current time.
>
> We left the session after Shawn concluded it with a
>
> “glance at the TAG Heuer on his wrist, “Hope you don’t mind if we run a
> little short today, Brady Bunch marathon, you understand . . . ?”
>
> From there we go into a cluster or rhizome of Shawn/Brady-impressions which
> can be reasonably imputed to Maxine as she gathers herself and leaves for
> MTA or cab (I’m guessing MTA - even Vyrva takes a bus to her Beanie
> connection) Kugelblitz-wards.
>
> The first of these is “Shawn’s devotion to reruns of the well-known
> seventies sitcom have drawn comment all up and down his client list”
>
> - Maxine isn’t one to sit silently in a waiting room, is what this
> bespeaks. “Draw[ing] comment” is a neutral phrase suggesting a mixed bag of
> positive and negative.
>
> - it seems apposite at this point to think of Sean Penn’s “Spicoli” surfer
> character in “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” in connection with Shawn. This
> in turn suggests that reasons for Maxine’s choice of Shawn’s emotherapy may
> include an attempt to grapple with a laid-back California mindset also
> evident in Vyrva, et al.*
>
> NB - the Bradys live in an LA suburb!
>
> Next item is a comparison of Brady Bunch episodes to holy sutras. Then an
> indication of Shawn’s especial favorite, the 3 part Hawaii episode,
> drilling down to specific plot elements:
> The bad-luck tiki
> Greg’s near-fatal wipeout
> Vincent Price’s cameo as an unstable archaeologist
>
>
> Continuing the zooming in from general to particular, at this point we
> learn of a session in which
> “I’ve always been more of a Jan-gets-a-wig person myself,” Maxine was once
> careless enough to admit.
>
> Does “was once careless enough to admit” show her as one of the negative
> commenters on Shawn’s Brady predilection?
>
> I think so - especially since we next see Shawn offer deeper colloquy -
>
> ““Interesting, Maxine. You want to, like, talk about it?” Beaming…”
>
> …and witness Maxine reject this opportunity with prejudice:
>
> “Beaming at her with that vacant, perhaps only Californian,
> the-Universe-is-a-joke-but-you-don’t-get-it smile which so often drives her
> to un-Buddhist daydreams seething with rage. Maxine doesn’t want to say
> “airhead” exactly, though she guesses if somebody put a tire gauge in his
> ear it might read a couple psi below spec.”
>
> Sigh - she reminds me of those Philistine students, who, when the professor
> gets onto an interesting tangent, ask, “Is this going to be on the test?”
>
> I like Maxine, but it doesn’t mean I have to agree with her on everything.
> Fortunately, I can explore the deeper implications of BB2:15 et al without
> - actually, even in part, because of - her disdain.
>
> There’s something that draws her to him; it’s reasonable to think that a
> source he frequently credits may hold some value as to why. Imho.
>
> However, she’s the main character and he’s not, so it is she whom I will
> follow home.
>
> * back in Chapter 1,
>
> “Vyrva is a sweetheart but not nearly time-obsessed enough. People been
> known to get their Upper West Side Mom cards pulled for far less than she
> gets away with.”
>
> Shuffling off childcare - obviously not for the first time - on Maxine the
> working single mom, when Vyrva has money, husband, the enviable digs -
> “people have been known” - how about “Maxine herself has considered
> [pulling Vyrva’s Upper West Side Mom card]?”
>
> The grappling with people with insufficient time-obsession is real!
>
> She doesn’t pull Vyrva’s card (though capable of everything this would
> entail, whether riot-act-reading or public dissing or private badmouthing);
> nor does she unleash the dogs of scorn on Shawn.
>
> Private daydreams of Shawn’s comeuppance, forbearance with Vyrva, a-and
> mere “brooding” about the “thousand injuries of Fortunato” - er, Heidi
> - rather than a fatal invitation to sample a pipe of Amontillado.
>
> She’s coping. That’s how she’s becoming a pillar.
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>