The monster seems to stalk Tom throughout the transcripts. Even though it is never seen, the idea of its absence becomes oppressive. The shadow puppets become the perfect receptacle for the idea of the monster throughout:
"Born out of the absence of light, shaped with his bare hands, seem able to exist in that place, though all of them are as immutable as letters, as permanent as fame, a strange little beastiarity lamenting nothing, instructing no one, revealing the outline of lives really only visible to the imagination." (261)
Tom never sees the monster. It is always something formed out of the absence of anything there. A sense of restlessness and weirdness is ultimately the driving emotion of the scenes. In the same way, Johnny's meeting with "Johnnie," the strange woman in the following footnote, that is also characterized with this overlying sense of weirdness. There is nothing to suggest anything sinister about Johnnie until Johnny begins to have an unusual vibe about her. The joke about the dwarf having sex with the penguin (259) also mirrors the varying sexual exploits of Johnny and Lude in the notes. Just as Dopey learns the truth about his encounter, so too does Johnny peel away and deconstruct the uglier aspects of the woman he and Lude have been with as shown on page 265. Most of the jokes themselves are sexual in nature, the monk, the punker and the old man, and the dwarves at the Vatican all resonate with with the sexuality of Johnny and Lude. Strange encounters with strange creatures. Johnnie is, if anything, the ultimate example of this. She takes an ultra sexualized form and shares the same name as Johnny. In the encounter with the dog, Johnny compares it as a projection of himself (267) only to see it destroyed. In this sense Johnnie is a sexualized version of himself, attempting to destroy his vulnerability.
(I'm sorry to post as a comment like this, but Blogspot wont let me make new posts, only comment on ones already made.)
ReplyDeleteNo doubt, the reasons why the story of the Pekinese is coupled with Tom’s story are more complex than I can puzzle out at this moment, but my first association would have to be the coupling of strays being betrayed by those who were suppose to give them shelter, but were a bit “off.”
In the story of the Pekinese, the stray is obvious. Johnny and Johnnie find a stray on the side of the road, after arguing about who should take the dog, it’s decided that Johnnie is the perfect provider for strays, even if there is something inherently wrong about her. In much the same way, the house is the perfect shelter for the stray family (will, Karin, etc) but in both cases there is something inherently wrong about the source of shelter, something they cannot immediately explain, but will eventually kill them.
However if the whole family is composed of strays in one manner or another, then tom is a stray even among them, being outside of the immediate family unit, estranged from his brother for years, and finally left behind while the others move forward. His mind strays, wanders, he tells jokes to occupy himself. He is alone, and his shelter, the house which is supposed to protect those inside, is trying to kill him. Be believes this, which according to some sources in the book makes it true within the house.
This in turn ties back to Johnnie and Johnny. One which may be a projection of Johnny himself. If we assume that in the house, the danger comes from within, then the monster is, in fact within tome, just as his hand puppets are projected from himself. Likewise, I think Johnnie may be a projection of Johnny himself. A fictitious figure he imagined as a means to explain away his own killing of the dog. This would explain the doubling of names, and the subtle off-ness about the woman. I think the juxtaposition of these two figures is to emphasize this point. The monster is within those in the story. Just as the house responds, theoretically to the psychological state of those inside, and is therefore an extension of them, the beast too is an extension of those inside. Likewise, Johnnie is an extension of Johnny, a side of himself he isn’t prepared to face yet, not ready to accept, this is perhaps a tentative testing of the waters surrounding his insecurities following his mother’s attempt on his life. An attempt to deal with the stress of that betrayal by projecting it out of himself and onto another being, a fictional woman named Johnnie and a small Pekinese dog.