Gorgons

The Gorgons enter 2666 not as creatures encountered in the world of the novel but as figures of Greek myth that Jean-Claude Pelletier uses to interpret Alex Pritchard’s enigmatic warning. The myth’s distinction between immortal sisters and mortal Medusa gives the men a story of danger, death, and desire; projecting it onto Liz Norton and Pritchard, they make an uncertain encounter seem like a prophecy and let that reading intensify their fear.

Myth and its mortal exception

Pelletier explains that Medusa is one of the three daughters of Phorcys and Ceto, the so-called Gorgons, whom he describes as sea monsters. According to the account he attributes to Hesiod, Medusa’s sisters, Stheno and Euryale, are immortal, while Medusa alone is not. The distinction matters to Pelletier because it gives the myth a mortal figure: among beings otherwise set apart from ordinary vulnerability, one can die.

Pelletier tells Manuel Espinoza that he read the myths as soon as he returned home. He adds another piece of the story: when Perseus cuts off Medusa’s head, Chrysaor, the father of Geryon, emerges, as does the horse Pegasus. The myth thus supplies him with more than a monster and a killing. It offers an uncanny aftermath in which new beings emerge from the act of decapitation, though the men do not establish what, if anything, this detail means for their own situation.

Pritchard as Perseus

Pelletier’s explanation is an attempt to decode the encounter with Pritchard, not evidence that the myth has literally come to life. He thinks Pritchard is warning them about an unseen danger and, more specifically, trying to tell him that true love will come only after Norton’s death. When Espinoza asks about that death, Pelletier answers by assigning Pritchard the role of Perseus, Medusa’s slayer. In this private allegory, Norton becomes Medusa, while Pritchard becomes the man who will kill her.

The interpretation is strikingly conjectural. The text presents it as Pelletier’s theory about what Pritchard meant, not as a disclosure of Pritchard’s intentions or a prediction confirmed by events. The myth gives Pelletier a pattern with which to organize a threat he cannot see clearly; its apparent coherence does not make it reliable. The difference between an ominous warning and an ordinary, misunderstood encounter remains unresolved.

A myth made into an obsession

The Gorgon story takes hold of Pelletier and Espinoza beyond their conversation. They drift through their work as if absent: Archimboldi’s renewed prospects for the Nobel Prize, university duties, journal contributions, classes, and conferences lose their interest. Pritchard becomes their overriding concern, described as an ominous presence and Norton’s constant companion. They know little about him, and their attention to the myth grows alongside that ignorance.

The two men try to fill the gaps by questioning Norton. She tells them that Pritchard is a teacher at a secondary school, not a university; that he comes from a town near Bournemouth rather than London; and that he studied for a year at Oxford before completing his studies in London. She describes him as belonging to the pragmatic Left and says he has occasionally mentioned plans to become active in the Labour Party, though those plans never become action. He teaches at a council school with many students from immigrant families. Pelletier and Espinoza also judge him headstrong and generous, but lacking imagination. These details make him more particular, yet do not settle the question the myth has made urgent for them.

When Pelletier and Espinoza next visit London, they ask Norton whether she loves or lusts after Pritchard. She first says no, then admits that perhaps she does and that she cannot give a conclusive answer. They insist on definitive confirmation and explain that they need to know. Their demand shows how the myth has changed the terms of their relationship: Norton’s uncertain desire is treated as evidence needed to resolve their own fear, rather than as a question she alone can answer for herself.

From imagined threat to actual violence

The Gorgon interpretation becomes part of the chain of events through which Pelletier and Espinoza later explain their beating of a Pakistani taxi driver. They revisit the episode, naming Pritchard, the innocent and mortal Medusa, the threat, their nerves, and the driver’s rudeness. The myth supplies a vocabulary for their alarm, but does not excuse the assault. They recall that while striking the fallen man they felt sleepiness mixed with sexual desire, and describe the sensation as if they were digging into themselves. They cannot say what they were looking for, or why they continued.

The following afternoon, they tell Norton everything they know or fear about Pritchard: the Gorgon, her death, and the image of an exploding woman. Norton listens until they run out of words, then reassures them that Pritchard could not hurt a fly. They think of Anthony Perkins, who had made the same claim, but accept her reassurance without being convinced. The myth has not brought them knowledge; it has taught them to make an unseen danger feel present, even as they remain unsure whether Norton is at risk.

Norton then points to what cannot be explained away: what happened the previous night. The men ask whether she has heard anything about the Pakistani driver. She says a local television station reported that a group of friends, probably the people they had seen coming from Garden Row, found his body and called the police. He suffered four broken ribs, a concussion, a broken nose, and the loss of all his upper teeth; he was in hospital. Espinoza admits that the driver’s insults made him lose control. That concrete aftermath stands against the mythic uncertainty: while Pritchard’s supposed threat remains an interpretation, the injuries inflicted on the driver are confirmed.

Narrative function

The Gorgons function as a borrowed structure through which Pelletier and Espinoza try to make the ambiguous legible. Medusa’s mortality lets them imagine Norton as vulnerable; Perseus gives Pritchard a role as potential killer; the promised love after death turns danger into a disturbing romantic proposition. The myth condenses their jealousy and anxiety into a fable, but cannot verify any of their suspicions.

Its force lies partly in the gap between what the men know and what they imagine. Pritchard remains largely unknown to them, Norton’s feelings remain uncertain even to herself, and Pelletier’s reading of the warning is only a theory. Yet the fable reshapes their attention and becomes entangled with a real act of violence. The Gorgons are therefore less a supernatural explanation than a measure of how fear can furnish its own evidence: an ancient monster supplies the image, while the consequences unfold in ordinary human conduct.