COL49 Group Read, section 3

[Mark Kohut]

TRP makes sure to write the sex scene as consensual... I could quote where
but
we can all read closely.....

What this scene means re sex in America then is more difficult to
define....crazy
situation and actions, surreal as that overused word goes........

Starting observation: it is clearly Oedipa 'letting down her hair" as David
wrote....
It is in the text....the way to escape her tower in this tale......

But......she "won't be easy" we are to learn later as Metzger quotes
Pierce....She is not
free & easy. Frenesi.....She wants Metzger....thigh-pressing warmth...he's
movie star handsome....
she began kissing him to wake him up with his visible hardon---TRP does not
have her grab it to wake him up, we notice---she is typically 'romantic"
full of Romance novels' kissing as the way...... and melts
emotionally...Metzger trying to undress her she
feels like a Barbie doll....Barbie that emblem of Everywoman then, a
suburban doll then...

I happen to be reading K's *The Metamorphosis *too and Oedipa is so wrapped
she can hardly turn herself over is not unlike
Gregor the insect when he is on his back and cannot turn over....

It is humanly bad, armored sex...He goes unconscious with the booze; she is
self-character-armored---big 50s phrase
from Wilhelm Reich....a little scene about trying to get it on before the
sixties broke that open....

On Tue, May 14, 2024 at 5:20 AM J K Van Nort via Pynchon-l <
pynchon-l at waste.org> wrote:

> Some questions about the second half of chapter two.
> How consensual is the sex?Why do the characters in the movie die?How does
> Eliade’s ‘non-religious man’ respond to the many religious images presented
> by TRP? How does a drummer set up on a diving board?
>
> In solidarity,
> James
>
>
> Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone
>
>
> On Sunday, May 12, 2024, 20:57, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Section 3, the first 1/3 of the 20 page chapter 2 (about 7 pages): p.
> 23-29ish. [beware sentences spanning pages]
>
> Synopsis
>
> Mucho “wants to believe” in jobs, English bands, a world he chooses to
> support. But seeking that life, Misery and Sincerity seem his inseparable
> fate.
>
> Oed leaves Mucho, and his barely-managed desperation, for Pierce’s
> dominion, San Narisco. And as she descends into its maze of madness, she
> senses “an intent to communicate” (from patterns), it falls to deliver, and
> so is “a revelation [trembling] just past the threshold of her
> understanding.”
>
> Her choice of abode in Echo Court seems unwise, but then she sees that the
> nymph is herself, and now WE can see why she might be helpless against the
> malevolent magic imprisoning her where ever she goes.
>
> Motel room cyclops windows “gagged each with its roaring air conditioner”
> is a wonderful image. More desperate imprisoned souls.
>
> Authenticity seems in short supply with her faux-Brit bohemian warden-gate
> keeper, Miles, always almost what he thinks you want him to be.
>
> But Mettzger IS what OEDIPA WANTS! And she is immediately suspicious he may
> be a TRICKSTER.  He’s offering her his debone, and wants to “come in
> there.” She’s already deployed the best move she’s got, and “had let her
> hair down all the way.” So she invites him in.
>
> Metzger’s Freudian child actor Mother domination bitching prompts Oed to
> nearly slip, saying “You certainly don’t look,” [gay]. She now suspects his
> faked sexual attraction to her. Turns out, he is the Narcissus to this Echo
> chamber.
>
> David Morris
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>
>
>
> --
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>