Malcolm X

[Basileios Drolias]

Hallo all,

After reading Gravity's Rainbow for the third time some months ago, I had 
the feeling that there wassomething missing from the discussions in this 
list (or at least the discussions that I have witnessed over teh past 
year or so): Race issues in Gravity's Rianbow.  I could 
somehow sense throughout reading the book that one of the main subjects 
that keep repeating themselves throughout the book is the black-white 
antithesis. 

In the `Who is the Kenosha Kid' discussion that we had about a month ago, 
somebody suggested that in Malcolm X's autobiography M. X, appears as 
`The Kenosha Kid'. I finished reading the biography yesterday, and 
although I did not find any mention of the Kenosha Kid  (I think...), I 
found out a few things, (obscure I have to admit) that are related with 
things that appear in Gravity's Rainbow. (It may be the fact that I am 
usually looking for TP influences everywhere, but it certainly felt a bit 
stronger  in the book). Among them are: Malcolm X sticking his head down 
a toilet and flushing, thoughts of malcolm X, about why do white men 
prefer black prostitutes (remember Major Murvy?), talk about English 
60-70 year old old-farts who want to be `dominated' (Pudding and Domina 
Nocturna?) and more. Orson Welles, (the Kenosha Kid) appears also in the 
biography in a parallelism of his `men from Mars' show with the tv show 
`the hate that hate produced' (is the Kenosha Kid a reference to Malcolm 
X then?)

I would be quite interested to find out if there are any things written 
anywhere about race issues in GR or in the influence of Malcolm X in 
Gravity's Rainbow. If any of you have read the autobiography do you agree 
that there could be some patterns that appear in GR?

tell me what you think

basil


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                  Ken wa Ten ni katazu.
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