SLPAD 82 - nonchalant compassion & genre conventions

[Michael Bailey]

“he assumed toward
               her that same nonchalant compassion which he felt for the
heroines of sex novels,
               or for the burned out but impotent good guy rancher in a
western.”

Another cultural reference
Actually 2, both generic:

“The heroines of sex novels” - such as _Swamp Wench_ no doubt; presumably,
while lying on his cot reading suchlike books he’s developed a “nonchalant
compassion”

This accords with theories of how reading expands one’s ability to
empathize and care about others, as a sort of thought experiment; also, in
buying & reading this type of book he demonstrates an interest in women who
embark on sexual adventures.

However, in addition to compassion (however nonchalant it might be), it
seems that his reading has inspired him to create a category of person in
whom he need only feel limited interest - which speaks to his own
limitations, but also perhaps to the implied attitudes in _Swamp Wench_ et
al.

He skips to a generic Western movie reference in the same sentence, as an
alternative stimulus prompting a similar “nonchalant compassion” to what he
feels for sex novel heroines (and for Buttercup here), buttresses the
linkage of his emotion/thought process to received patterns from the
ambient culture.

Levine himself is acting out a composite of anti-heroic roles such as
Marlon Brando, eg, or Jack Nicholson in upcoming roles, would play.

The impotent good guy rancher will be humiliated and ultimately rescued
(one hopes) by more puissant defenders of goodness - it’s a genre
convention.

The wild woman in a sex novel is actually looking for true love, and Levine
is one of the frogs she will kiss in vain - at least that’s the genre
convention.

He doesn’t appear to give proper weight to the idea that maybe she really
is seeking the same sort of transient adventure that he is. So he
perfunctorily accedes to genre convention, in his mind.

It doesn’t stop him from carrying through with the experience at hand,
there in the love shack, though, does it?