With an inadvertent yet innocuous oath, Lindsay had sprung to the side of young Blundell, grasping him about his ample waist, in an attempt to lift him, in hopes that this would relieve the tautness in the pull-rope and allow the valve to close.
* * * * * * * * * *
It may have taken 119 lines but I finally feel vindicated by the phrase "ample waist." I knew Miles Blundell was a fat little fucker. He might as well be me in Junior High! If at some point he seems nonplussed by some other kid making fun of him for nonchalantly picking his nose in public, I'm going to sue Thomas Pynchon for likeness rights.
The problem with satire is that if it's not incredibly hyperbolic and facetious (like eating babies to solve a famine), it winds up feeling like just another example of the cultural terribleness of which it's purporting to make fun. And there's nothing hyperbolic about Miles Blundell being the clumsy fat kid to make it great satiric writing against the clumsy fat person trope in entertainment (I wanted to say "modern entertainment" but I'm not familiar enough with writing across all history. I'm sure there was a clumsy fat guy aboard the Argo or farting up a storm inside the Trojan Horse. And wasn't Level 3 of Dante's Inferno just a bunch of fat people tripping over devil tails and causing Rube Goldberg-like accidents that lasted eons?). In which case, I just have to believe that Pynchon thinks fat people are clumsy Antichrists.
At least Pynchon resists having Blundell stuffing his face with some kind of cream pie every scene. Although that would make the satire more apparent! And also it could result in a really wacky pie throwing fracas on the Inconvenience!
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