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Slow Learner
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Slow Learner
Contents
1 Content
2 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
Content
Thomas Pynchon
Country
United States
Language
English
Genre(s)
Short stories
Publisher
Little, Brown
Publication
Introduction
date
"The Small Rain" - First published in March,
1959 in the Cornell Writer, No. 2, pp. 1432.
Media type
"Mortality and Mercy in Vienna" (available only
ISBN
in some editions) - First published in Epoch
(Cornell University), Spring 1959, Vol IX, No. 4, OCLC Number
pp. 195213.
The story takes its title from Measure for
Dewey
Measure Act I Scene 1 line 44.
Decimal
"Low-lands" - First published in New World
Writing, No. 16, Philadelphia: Lippincott, on 16 LC
Classification
March 1960, pp. 85108.
"Entropy" - First published in the Kenyon
Preceded by
Review 22, No. 2, in Spring 1960, pp. 2792.
Followed by
"Under the Rose" - First published in The
Noble Savage 3 in May 1961, pp. 233251.
"The Secret Integration" - First published December 26, 1964 in
237 No. 45, pp. 3637, 39, 42-44, 46-49, 51.
1984
Print
0-316-72442-4
10348691 (http://worldcat.org
/oclc/10348691)
813/.54 19
PS3566.Y55 S5 1984
Gravity's Rainbow
Vineland
Synopsis
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"Low-lands"
Dennis Flange, a lawyer at Wasp and Winsome, Attorneys at Law, calls into the office, telling
them he's not coming in. What he's going to do instead is sit at home and drink wine with the
neighborhood garbage man, Rocco Squarcione. As they sit and talk, Dennis's wife, Cindy, comes
home and is noticeably frustrated by Dennis's afternoon activities. To make matters worse, an old
rowdy college "friend" of the Flanges, named Pig Bodine, shows up in a stolen MG to see his old
friend. At this, Cindy orders the three men off the premises. They all get in Rocco's garbage
truck, and head down to the dump, patrolled by an old man named Bolingbroke. There, Dennis
waxes philosophical about the dump, thinking of it as an allegory for his life up to that point, and
possibly his life in the future. Rocco leaves for home, and Bolingbroke, Bodine, and Dennis turn
in for the night, swapping sea stories as they doze off. Then, in the middle of the night, Dennis
hears a woman's voice calling "Anglo! Anglo with the golden hair!". Realizing this is him, Dennis
runs off into the dump looking for the woman. Remembering that Bolingbroke said that gypsies
were in the area, Dennis wonders if the woman he's looking for is a gypsy. Then he sees her. She
is the most beautiful woman he's ever seen... and is also three feet tall. She takes him to her
home, tunneling deep into the dump, where she asks him to marry her. He declines, saying he's
already married. To this, she starts crying, thinking Dennis won't take her. He then thinks she
looks like a child, and that he always wanted children, but Cindy was too busy. He then tells her
he'll stay... for a while.
"Entropy"
A weekend-long lease-breaking party devolves into disarray as Meatball Mulligan entertains a
revolving door of cronies, servicemen, and jazz musicians while, in a hothouse room, Callisto and
his lover Aubade ponder the everpresent condition of enclosed systems creating disorder while
trying to nurse a baby bird back to health in a constantly 37 Fahrenheit room. Callisto
pontificates on the discoveries of the Laws of Thermodynamics, Clausius' theorem, and Gibbs
and Boltzmann, finally deciding that entropy is an adequate metaphor to apply to American
consumerist society, "a similar tendency from the least to the most probable, from differentiation
to sameness, from ordered individuality to a kind of chaos." Meanwhile Meatball juggles his
attention between conversations about communication theory and personal relationships, keeping
the musicians from smoking marijuana in his place, and the unexpected entrances of three coed
philosophy 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, and
childish chicanery break out all over, Meatball debates whether to hide in a closet until the party
subsides 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 fails
to improve under the unchanging conditions, which causes Aubade to smash out a window of the
hothouse with her bare hands, displacing the constant temperature of inside and outside and
leaving the story in a state of hovering uncertainty of where the next moment will lead.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_Learner
Two English spies, named Porpentine and Goodfellow, are sitting in a cafe in Upper Egypt. Their
mission is to find out what their nemesis, Moldweorp, is up to in the area. Porpentine theorizes his
plan is to assassinate the Consul-General, and so they travel to Cairo to intercept him, along with
Goodfellow's new girlfriend, named Victoria Wren, her family, and a man named BongoShaftsbury. 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, and
Bongo-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. Upon
reaching their destination, they realize their hunch was correct, and Moldweorp and his spies are
swarming the place. After Porpentine foils the assassination attempt, a chase across the streets
of 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 tells
Goodfellow to return to the cab. He does, and a shot rings out. Turning around, he sees his
companion 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 of
a possible assassination. He's joined by his new girlfriend, a barmaid this time, who thinks of him
as just a simple-minded Englishman, no good in bed but liberal with his money.
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See also
Baedeker's guide to Egypt for 1899
John Buchan's spy fiction
Edmund Wilson's To the Finland Station
Machiavelli's The Prince
John le Carr
Surrealism
Regional guide to the The Berkshire Hills (1939), American Guide Series, Federal Writers'
Project
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Categories: 1984 short story collections Short story collections by Thomas Pynchon
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