Slow Learner - Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia

Slow Learner

1st edition cover

Author(s) Thomas Pynchon

Country United States

Language English

Genre(s) Short stories

Publisher Little, Brown

Publicationdate

1984

Media type Print

ISBN 0-316-72442-4

OCLC Number 10348691 (http://worldcat.org/oclc/10348691)

DeweyDecimal

813/.54 19

LCClassification

PS3566.Y55 S5 1984

Preceded by Gravity's Rainbow

Followed by Vineland

Slow LearnerFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Slow Learner is the 1984 published collection of sixearly novellas by the American novelist ThomasPynchon, originally published in various sourcesbetween 1959 and 1964.

The book is also notable for its introduction, writtenby Pynchon. His comments on the stories afterreading them again for the first time in many years,and his recollection of the events surrounding theircreation, amount to the author's onlyautobiographical comments to his readers.

Contents1 Content2 Synopsis

2.1 "The Small Rain"2.2 "Low-lands"2.3 "Entropy"2.4 "Under the Rose"2.5 "The Secret Integration"

3 See also

ContentIntroduction"The Small Rain" - First published in March,1959 in the Cornell Writer, No. 2, pp. 14–32."Mortality and Mercy in Vienna" (available onlyin some editions) - First published in Epoch(Cornell University), Spring 1959, Vol IX, No. 4,pp. 195–213.

The story takes its title from Measure forMeasure Act I Scene 1 line 44.

"Low-lands" - First published in New WorldWriting, No. 16, Philadelphia: Lippincott, on 16March 1960, pp. 85–108."Entropy" - First published in the KenyonReview 22, No. 2, in Spring 1960, pp. 27–92."Under the Rose" - First published in TheNoble Savage 3 in May 1961, pp. 233–251."The Secret Integration" - First published December 26, 1964 in The Saturday Evening Post237 No. 45, pp. 36–37, 39, 42-44, 46-49, 51.

Synopsis

Slow Learner - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_Learner

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"The Small Rain"

This was Pynchon's first published story. It centers around Nathan Levine, a lazy Specialist 3/C inthe Army stationed at New Orleans who, along with several of his companions in the battalion areassigned to help with the cleanup at a small island named Creole, which has just been hit by ahurricane. He picks up dead bodies back at the island and after the horrific day of work, he headsback thinking about how to go forward with his life, if at all.

"Low-lands"

Dennis Flange, a lawyer at Wasp and Winsome, Attorneys at Law, calls into the office, tellingthem he's not coming in. What he's going to do instead is sit at home and drink wine with theneighborhood garbage man, Rocco Squarcione. As they sit and talk, Dennis's wife, Cindy, comeshome and is noticeably frustrated by Dennis's afternoon activities. To make matters worse, an oldrowdy college "friend" of the Flanges, named Pig Bodine, shows up in a stolen MG to see his oldfriend. At this, Cindy orders the three men off the premises. They all get in Rocco's garbagetruck, and head down to the dump, patrolled by an old man named Bolingbroke. There, Denniswaxes philosophical about the dump, thinking of it as an allegory for his life up to that point, andpossibly his life in the future. Rocco leaves for home, and Bolingbroke, Bodine, and Dennis turnin for the night, swapping sea stories as they doze off. Then, in the middle of the night, Dennishears a woman's voice calling "Anglo! Anglo with the golden hair!". Realizing this is him, Dennisruns off into the dump looking for the woman. Remembering that Bolingbroke said that gypsieswere in the area, Dennis wonders if the woman he's looking for is a gypsy. Then he sees her. Sheis the most beautiful woman he's ever seen... and is also three feet tall. She takes him to herhome, tunneling deep into the dump, where she asks him to marry her. He declines, saying he'salready married. To this, she starts crying, thinking Dennis won't take her. He then thinks shelooks like a child, and that he always wanted children, but Cindy was too busy. He then tells herhe'll stay... for a while.

"Entropy"

A weekend-long lease-breaking party devolves into disarray as Meatball Mulligan entertains arevolving door of cronies, servicemen, and jazz musicians while, in a hothouse room, Callisto andhis lover Aubade ponder the everpresent condition of enclosed systems creating disorder whiletrying to nurse a baby bird back to health in a constantly 37° Fahrenheit room. Callistopontificates on the discoveries of the Laws of Thermodynamics, Clausius' theorem, and Gibbsand Boltzmann, finally deciding that entropy is an adequate metaphor to apply to Americanconsumerist society, "a similar tendency from the least to the most probable, from differentiationto sameness, from ordered individuality to a kind of chaos." Meanwhile Meatball juggles hisattention between conversations about communication theory and personal relationships, keepingthe musicians from smoking marijuana in his place, and the unexpected entrances of three coedphilosophy majors lugging gallons of Chianti and, later, five sailors searching for a whorehouse.As the musicians discuss music theory, the girls and sailors chant drunken songs together, andchildish chicanery break out all over, Meatball debates whether to hide in a closet until the partysubsides its second wind or try to calm everyone down, one by one. He decides on the latter,patching up each out-of-control situation until the party tapers down to a din. Callisto's bird failsto improve under the unchanging conditions, which causes Aubade to smash out a window of thehothouse with her bare hands, displacing the constant temperature of inside and outside andleaving the story in a state of hovering uncertainty of where the next moment will lead.

"Under the Rose"


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Two English spies, named Porpentine and Goodfellow, are sitting in a cafe in Upper Egypt. Theirmission is to find out what their nemesis, Moldweorp, is up to in the area. Porpentine theorizes hisplan is to assassinate the Consul-General, and so they travel to Cairo to intercept him, along withGoodfellow's new girlfriend, named Victoria Wren, her family, and a man named Bongo-Shaftsbury. During the trip, Bongo-Shaftsbury attempts to attack Victoria's younger sister Mildred,but Porpentine stops him. He then realizes that the man is a spy working for Moldweorp, andBongo-Shaftsbury is put under guard. Upon reaching Cairo, the two men check into their hotels.The next morning, they head to the opera house where the Consul-General is a guest. Uponreaching their destination, they realize their hunch was correct, and Moldweorp and his spies areswarming the place. After Porpentine foils the assassination attempt, a chase across the streetsof Cairo ensues. They reach the Sphinx, and exit their cabs, running across the desert.Porpentine and Goodfellow catch Moldweorp, and they talk a moment. Porpentine tellsGoodfellow to return to the cab. He does, and a shot rings out. Turning around, he sees hiscompanion face-down in the hot desert sand, as Moldweorp walks away. Sixteen years later,Goodfellow surveys a motorcade containing Archduke Franz Ferdinand, upon hearing rumors ofa possible assassination. He's joined by his new girlfriend, a barmaid this time, who thinks of himas just a simple-minded Englishman, no good in bed but liberal with his money.

"The Secret Integration"

Grover Snodd and his friends Tim Santora, Carl Barrington, Etienne Cherdlu, and HoganSlothrop, neighborhood kids from Mingeborough, New York, meet up at Grover's house oneSaturday afternoon to discuss activities for the weekend. Their "Inner Junta" talk about planningelaborate practical jokes, collecting milk money from schoolkids. The meeting adjourns and thefive of them depart, through a lush section of forest they dub King Yjro's Woods, then down astream aboard a refurbished flat-bottomed boat they christened the S.S. Leak, to an abandonedmanor known as "The Big House".

Here they solidify plans to infiltrate and disrupt a PTA meeting with smoke bombs andsodium/water explosions when Hogan, an 8-year-old AA member, gets a call to sit with anothermember who is alone and afraid. He and Tim abandon the group and go to the hotel where Mr.Carl McAfee, a Negro musician from Mississippi, was staying.

Mr. McAfee eyes the situation with the kids and, chalking it up to a bad joke, sends them awayand calls room service for a fifth of whiskey. Hogan steadfastly claims his seriousness and thekids stay to keep him company. After failing to shoo them away, Grover calls the hotel and asks toshow up with Etienne. McAfee can't afford to pay for the bottle of whiskey, much less the roomhe's staying in, and breaks down into screaming and crying in his bed, passing out in-betweenfits. The police are called in to escort Mr. McAfee out as a vagrant, despite protests from the kidsand Hogan's insistence that the man is sick, not a criminal. The timeline gets flipped here and,after the Junta had successfully completed a few of their practical jokes, talk about CarlBarrington's family moving into the neighborhood had taken over the parents.

In response to the word "integration" being thrown around, Grover, the boy genius, offers thecalculus definition. Later it is realized that the parents were discussing the other meaning for"integration", white and black kids in the same schools, was what was really meant. Carl's family,who is Negro, is a sort of trigger for the gentrification of the area, an easy target, an explanationfor the racist remarks made by Tim's mother and reflected around the neighborhood, and giveslight to the mockery of Hogan's dispatch to Mr. McAfee's aid.

Carl, although accepted by the boys as a legitimate member of the Junta, could only be relatedto by grownups as an "imaginary playmate", someone who is talked about and reflected throughsafe White suburban eyes, then left to harmlessly evaporate at day's end.


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See alsoBaedeker's guide to Egypt for 1899John Buchan's spy fictionEdmund Wilson's To the Finland StationMachiavelli's The PrinceJohn le CarréSurrealismRegional guide to the The Berkshire Hills (1939), American Guide Series, Federal Writers'Project

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