GRGR1 - Giant Adenoid

[Andrew Dinn]

Craig Clark writes:

> Nor for that matter is Slothrop. If  by the concept of "the central 
> character of the novel" we understand "that entity whose inner 
> workings we come best to understand, and around whom the events of 
> the novel centre", then the central character of the novel is called 
> Vergeltungswaffen Zwei - and it's with the screaming of that 
> character that the novel does, in fact, open...

It may be `Vergeltungswaffen Zwei' to you but it's (and here we have
the choice of making this alternative an `either ... or' or a `both
... and') `Aggregat Vier' to me. When does an Assembly become a
Vengeance Weapon? There are two rockets, the good rocket, the A4,
which follows man's guidance (at least until Brennschluss), wants to
build, construct, control, go to the moon and liberate mankind and the
bad rocket, the V2, which follows its own ineffable path, wants only
to decay, rip apart, randomise, to fall, turn on and destroy mankind.
A-and in the opening it's a rising A which comes with a scream. The
descending V arrives at the end of the book, that last delta-t from
its anihilating orgasm.

Are these two aspects of the same thing. Does any striving, any order
carry within it the seeds of its own destruction. Is the militant
hierarchical, order-obsessed church-militant of the Archangel doomed
always to succumb to the populist, eclectic and primitive cult of the
Virgin. Seems like Tom is as much in agreement with his namesake and
fellow songster, Tom Lehrer, as with the law of entropy:

    Whatever goes up must always come down

the follow-up line to which serves only to emhasise the crassness of
the sentiment in the motto to part 1.

    That's not my department says Werner von Braun


Andrew Dinn
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And though Earthliness forget you,
To the stilled Earth say:  I flow.
To the rushing water speak:  I am.