OK. Here's where my brain breaks. The woman is named Ghislaine, the date that Slothrop pulls aside to check if he's being paranoid. Obviously, were this novel written today it would be an unsubtle reference to Ghislaine Maxwell. Moreover in the sense that Katje is being trafficked by Them for Slothrop's sexual use (honeypot scheme??) this Ghislaine is complicit in sex trafficking. So lucky guess/cooincidence? By the time the novel came out, Ghislaine Maxwell had been born, so Pynchon definitely could have known that Robert Maxwell had a daughter named Ghislaine. Robert Maxwell would have been just the type of person that the Noided Pynchon would have been keeping tabs on. Am I being crazy? Is the novel making me crazy?
It's not just you! That's the exact place my mind went to as well. Wasn't Robert Maxwell's boat also named the Ghislaine? Could it be a reference to that at all? Though I don't know when he would have named it that. But I do know that Robert was tied up in some very shady shit that would have had Pynchon very interested to write about. So maybe it is possible...
well the boat surely would be after the novel, but look here in the next section: "Ghislaine's long hair and tanned arms, her six-year-old face" well the real Ghislaine would be about six as of writing/pub. Born 1961. creepy.
OK. Here's where my brain breaks. The woman is named Ghislaine, the date that Slothrop pulls aside to check if he's being paranoid. Obviously, were this novel written today it would be an unsubtle reference to Ghislaine Maxwell. Moreover in the sense that Katje is being trafficked by Them for Slothrop's sexual use (honeypot scheme??) this Ghislaine is complicit in sex trafficking. So lucky guess/cooincidence? By the time the novel came out, Ghislaine Maxwell had been born, so Pynchon definitely could have known that Robert Maxwell had a daughter named Ghislaine. Robert Maxwell would have been just the type of person that the Noided Pynchon would have been keeping tabs on. Am I being crazy? Is the novel making me crazy?
It's not just you! That's the exact place my mind went to as well. Wasn't Robert Maxwell's boat also named the Ghislaine? Could it be a reference to that at all? Though I don't know when he would have named it that. But I do know that Robert was tied up in some very shady shit that would have had Pynchon very interested to write about. So maybe it is possible...
well the boat surely would be after the novel, but look here in the next section: "Ghislaine's long hair and tanned arms, her six-year-old face" well the real Ghislaine would be about six as of writing/pub. Born 1961. creepy.
That is absolutely bizarre...