COL 49 End of Chapter 3 summary

[Michael Bailey]

On Abbott Elementary (great show) one of the football players justifies to
a teammate his doing favors for the teachers and students by saying, “my
boundaries are porous” (which I guess is a thing; there’s even an article
in PubMed about porous boundaries,
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2633920 )

Except for the subject of the Tristero, on which he’s closed-mouthed,
Driblette’s boundaries are porous - like Professor Bortz’s later, with the
drunken students at his house, and showing the pornographic Courier’s
Tragedy to non-credentialed Oedipa …

Plus, with Driblette, there’s also probably an attraction to Oedipa at
play. That, and the sweat from the gray-flannel suit (which, isn’t there a
movie by that name?
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/90886.The_Man_in_the_Gray_Flannel_Suit
 (1956))
which makes him shower-prone - I can buy him showering in front of the
attractive paying audience member who just told him the play was great.




On Tue, Jun 4, 2024 at 8:06 AM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

> Who in the hell showers and talks from it in the visit of a new person, a
> woman? We have to
> explain THIS re TRP's story meaning...
>
> On Tue, Jun 4, 2024 at 7:53 AM Michael Bailey <
> michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Thanks for the summary!
>>
>> Some not completely unrelated thoughts:
>>
>>
>> Zapf’s Used Books - Hermann Zapf was the designer of the Dingbat font, but
>> also a bunch of other stuff, including the Palatino font and automated
>> justification.
>>
>> Also a calligrapher, in 1960 he did the Preamble to the United Nations
>> Charter in 4 languages for the Morgan Museum.
>>
>> https://www.themorgan.org/literary-historical/116614
>>
>>
>> He also was a consultant for Hallmark Cards in the 1960s and ‘70s,
>> developing a style manual for their lettering artists.
>>
>>
>>
>> —- regarding the anthology Driblette can’t lend her because somebody took
>> it -
>>
>> “There was another copy there. Zapf might still have it. Can you find the
>> place?” Something came to her viscera, danced briefly, and went. “Are you
>> putting me on?”
>>
>> — does she say, “Are you putting me on?” in response to “can you find the
>> place?”
>> (Like, of course I can find the place?)
>>
>> - but that seems too mundane to follow a feeling of something dancing in
>> her viscera.
>>
>> — so do all the other proximate possible meanings I can think of:
>>
>>  a) she’s incredulous that he loaned out his copy to party unknown &
>> didn’t
>> get it back?
>>
>> b) you’re putting me on - his name is Zapf?
>>
>> c) it’s just a throwaway remark to a showering man?
>>
>> d) an example of the “bad ear” Pynchon deprecated in the _Slow Learner_
>> intro?
>>
>> - slowly it dawns on me that the dancing in her viscera is connected to
>> the
>> dance mentioned earlier in that bit about the languid, sinister blooming
>> of
>> The Tristero:
>>  “something a little extra for whoever’d stayed this late”
>> Which she has.
>>
>> Maybe the reason Driblette can’t just ask one of the cast for the book
>> back
>> is because whoever he gave the book to is, like, a Man in Black.
>>
>> Maybe they’ve put the frighteners on him and took his original copy,
>> although that would seem an ineffective way of impeding him.
>>
>> He seems loath to reveal anything about other interested parties - and
>> imputes an unlikely “scholarly dispute” to explain her and their interest.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Jun 2, 2024 at 4:35 PM Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
>>
>> > What happens after the play, as CHAPTER  3 draws to a close, marks  a
>> > break between Metzger and Oedipa, and raises questions about Driblette’s
>> > nervous evasiveness, and  his passionate portrayal of the play as merely
>> > entertainment.
>> >
>> > HERE IS A not very condensed SUMMARY  with comments
>> >
>> > OM wants to go backstage with Metzger to question the director Randolph
>> > Driblette who also played Gennaro.
>> >
>> > “Oh, about the bones.” He had a brooding look.
>> > Oedipa said, “I don’t know. It just has me uneasy. The two things, so
>> > close.”
>> >
>> > It now becomes obvious that Metz’s urgent desire to leave is more than
>> > distaste for the play, In recent events Oedipa has found out that Pierce
>> > Inveraritiy’s holdings are quite vast and that there is very dark
>> aspect to
>> > some of his business affairs including the purchase of human bones of
>> > american GIs from  an ex fascist mafioso,  aerospace weapons
>> investments,
>> > and the ability to run freeways through cemetaries.   The author has
>> > foreshadowed the way these shadows will come from Trystero and now in
>> the
>> > play the Trystero  has begun to be named and identified in the center
>> of a
>> > bloody power struggle. Metz himself may be the legal side of settling
>> the
>> > estate but he is also an actor  who has already deceived Oedipa and must
>> > understand her “easy”ness may be in doubt. He turns to acting the macho
>> > lawyer scolding a ridiculous softheaded witness.
>> >
>> > “Fine,” Metzger said, “and what next, picket the V.A.? March on
>> > Washington? God protect me,” he addressed the ceiling of the little
>> > theater, causing a few heads among those leaving to swivel, “from these
>> > lib, overeducated broads with the soft heads and bleeding hearts. I am
>> 35
>> > years old, and I should know better.
>> > ” “Metzger,” Oedipa whispered, embarrassed, “I’m a Young Republican.”
>> >  “Hap Harrigan comics,” Metzger now even louder, “which she is hardly
>> old
>> > enough to read, John Wayne on Saturday afternoon slaughtering ten
>> thousand
>> > Japs with his teeth, this is Oedipa Maas’s World War II, man. Some
>> people
>> > today can drive VW’s, carry a Sony radio in their shirt pocket. Not this
>> > one, folks, she wants to right wrongs, 20 years after it’s all over.
>> Raise
>> > ghosts. All from a drunken hassle with Manny Di Presso. Forgetting her
>> > first loyalty, legal and moral, is to the estate she represents. Not to
>> our
>> > boys in uniform, however gallant, whenever they died.”
>> >
>> > This is obviously more about fears in Metzger’s mind about where her
>> > questions might lead than the wildly overgeneralized  tough guy put
>> down of
>> > her as an idealistic youthful female, which then  leads up to his
>> dubious
>> > legal and moral argument over her required loyalty to what is quite
>> likely
>> > a criminally acquired estate.
>> >
>> > “It isn’t that,” she protested. “I don’t care what Beaconsfield uses in
>> > its filter. I don’t care what Pierce bought from the Cosa Nostra. I
>> don’t
>> > want to think about them. Or about what happened at Lago di Pietà, or
>> > cancer . . .” She looked around for words, feeling helpless. “What
>> then?”
>> > Metzger challenged, getting to his feet, looming. “What?” “I don’t
>> know,”
>> > she said, a little desperate. “Metzger, don’t harass me. Be on my side.”
>> > “Against whom?” inquired Metzger, putting on shades.
>> > “I want to see if there’s a connection. I’m curious.”
>> >  “Yes, you’re curious,” Metzger said. “I’ll wait in the car, OK?”
>> >
>> > In this exchange I am seeing the oft-noted pattern in Pynchon’s
>> characters
>> > of the divided loyalties of a woman attracted in 2 directions- both
>> toward
>> > the authority figure of the state (or estate), and toward truth that
>> might
>> > question and undermine such loyalty( Frenesi, Shasta Fey, Katje, Maxine
>> > Tarnow). Her curiosity has been met with  insults. Her request for
>> support
>> > can only be understood by Metzger as being “against” someone.  As we
>> have
>> > seen earlier, the instincts of this lawyer are to close his eyes to the
>> > truth if he thinks it will serve even a potential client.
>> >
>> > OM makes a beautifully written entry backstage to where Driblette stands
>> > .”She couldn’t stop watching his eyes. They were bright black,
>> surrounded
>> > by an incredible network of lines, like a laboratory maze for studying
>> > intelligence in tears. They seemed to know what she wanted, even if she
>> > didn’t.” He discourages her from asking about the play elaborating an
>> > argument that it is a cheap horror flick with no meaning, but also,
>> later,
>> > that the words are not the important part but the life-giving vision of
>> the
>> > director. She asks about a copy of the text.
>> > “Why,” Driblette said at last, “is everybody so interested in texts?”
>> > “Who else?” Too quickly. Maybe he had only been talking in general.
>> > Driblette’s head wagged back and forth. “Don’t drag me into your
>> scholarly
>> > disputes,” adding “whoever you all are,”
>> > She asks about the chill silence in the 4th act and finds they weren’t
>> in
>> > the original nor were the 3 assassins seen.
>> > He goes on, under the assumption she is a scholar , saying you guys are
>> > like puritans about the Bible, hung up with words  and perhaps goes  a
>> bit
>> > too far in dismissing the importance of words. His arguments much better
>> > crafted than Metzger describing himself as the projector in the
>> planetarium
>> > procecting a world.
>> > He tells her “ you could could fall in love, talk to my shrink….
>> > “Driblette?” Oedipa called, after awhile. His face appeared briefly. “We
>> > could do that.”
>> > He wasn’t smiling. His eyes waited, at the centers of their webs.
>> >  “I’ll call,” said Oedipa. She left, and was all the way outside before
>> > thinking, I went in there to ask about bones and instead we talked about
>> > the Trystero thing. She stood in a nearly deserted parking lot, watching
>> > the headlights of Metzger’s car come at her, and wondered how
>> accidental it
>> > had been. Metzger had been listening to the car radio. She got in and
>> rode
>> > with him for two miles before realizing that the whimsies of nighttime
>> > reception were bringing them KCUF down from Kinneret, and that the disk
>> > jockey talking was her husband, Mucho.
>> >
>> >
>> > Open to questions, theories,
>> > ? “like a lab maze for studying intelligence in tears” ?
>> >
>> > ? we could do that?
>> >
>> > Insolid verity and pierced parity…. About the best I can do JT
>> > --
>> > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>> >
>> --
>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>>
>