Thomas Pynchon's V. (1963)
Read Professor Irwin Corey's acceptance speech for Pynchon's 1974 National Book Award for Gravity's Rainbow.
Also, have a look at Douglas Kløvedal Lannark's exhaustive documenting of "love" in Gravity's Rainbow.
Manon Lescaut
Manon Lescaut by
Puccini
Plot Synopsis
At an inn in Amiens students are singing. Des Grieux enters quiet and sullen and sits down. Manon, her brother Lescaut and a chance acquaintance, Geronte, alight from a coach and enter the inn. Des Grieux sees Manon and speaks to her when the men leave to check in. Manon tells Des Grieux that she is on her way to a convent. When she leaves for her room she says she will return. [TRP's "Under The Rose"]
Geronte, an old libertine, has been planning to abduct Manon and keep her as his mistress. However, Edmund, a student friend of Des Grieux's, overhears a conversation regarding Geronte's plans and warns Des Grieux. He and Manon elope to Paris.
Lescaut tells Geronte that they have probably gone to Paris.
Geronte abducts Manon and when the next scene begins, she has been his mistress for quite some time and is bored with her luxurious life. A troupe of musicians and dancers visits and Manon is coaxed into dancing a minuet for everyone. Then Geronte and friends leave for a party and Manon says she'll join them shortly. Des Grieux unexpectedly shows up and excoriates Manon for her lifestyle. They sing a duet in which they proclaim their love for each other. Geronte returns and finds them together, acting cool but he eventually kicks Manon out.
As an abandoned woman, Manon is banished from France and embarks for the French province of Louisiana where she becomes a prostitute. After bribing a guard and singing an aria, Des Grieux is allowed on board the ship.
In the next scene Des Grieux and Manon are in the territory of New Orleans where they have gone to escape importune solicitations. They are wandering, seeking shelter. Manon, exhausted, rests while Des Grieux carries on the search alone. When he returns, Manon dies in his arms.
Translations of the Italian excerpts from Manon Lescaut, V. , p.65:
Pazzo son! = "I am insane!"
Guardate, come io piango ed imploro = "Look at me. How I weep and implore"
Come io chiedo pieta! = "How I plead for pity!"
As David Cowart points out in Thomas Pynchon: The Art of Illusion:<.p>
"The Maijstrals's granddaughter, Paola, will like Manon and Victoria become both an exile and a prostitute." (p.140)
