GRGR dreams

[MASCARO at humnet.ucla.edu]

I have wanted to say something in the GRGR, but having amassed so many unread 
pots on the topic, I've been afraid of just repeating what someone else has said 
already and probably more clearly.  A quik .02 on the dreaming thing:
Henry M. wonders:

>As with many works, GR often seems like a dream or a series of dreams 
>to me, including the ever popular dream within a dream. If a dream, whose? 
>Preterite Pirate? Sloppy Slothrop? Romantic Roger? 
>Pynchon's? The readers? (all together now...)

In my reading:
 it is a dream;  it is the world's dream; it is the contemporary world dreaming of its 
own birth; the dream occurs, ironically, just before it's own death; the dream is 
triggered by the closing rocket strike which, hysteron proteron, is preceded by its 
own effect (that happens alla time, as you foax are pointing out); this isn't a 
metaphor w/in the novel, but taken as literal--remember that GR clearly posits a 
living earth (and did it before the Gaia hypotheses became fashionable), an 
organism, capable of feeling, and therefore of dreaming .  .  . 

If those studiously engaged in the Group Read want no posts from those not 
following the schedule, let me know and I won't say anything else until I have read 
all the back posts and reread the assigned material.  Don't know if there's netiquette 
involved or what.

john m