GRGR2

[ckaratnytsky at nypl.org]

     Re question 1:
     
     Well, Skippy, the computer's been crashing and the network's up and 
     down, but I've got some thoughts, specifically in re the introduction 
     of Slothrop, which run as follows:  I agree with Andrew's comment that 
     P's attention to detail is awesome (in this word's literal, as well as 
     it's, um, pothead usage--totally) in this section, but I don't 
     entirely agree that it's disparate.  Moreover, though I don't 
     *disagree* that the "stage directions and scenery...introduce 
     but...don't explore in detail later obsessions,"  I would like to say 
     that, well, yes, this may be true, but I think that the comment is off 
     the point a bit:  I think that the stage directions and scenery 
     explore PREVIOUS obsessions, namely, The Dream, and certain images and 
     associations that were put into place in section 1.
     
     Things that link:
     
     Think about Slothrop's extreme discomfort at the sound of the 
     rockets. "But then last September the rockets came.  Them fucking 
     rockets.  *You couldn't adjust to the bastards.*"  [Emphasis added.]  
     A-and--remember Slothrop's increasing distress as the bombings get 
     worse--the chain-smoking, the nervousness, the drinking, etc.  
     (Tantivy kids him about smoking two cigs at once...)
     
     Now compare all of this with the introductory Dream graph ("A 
     screaming comes across the sky.  *It has happened before, but there is 
     nothing to compare it to now.*"  [Emphasis added.]) and the intense 
     fatalism and grim claustrophobia of the evacuation.  This sense of 
     continued, relentless torment in the face of repeated bombings mirrors 
     Slothrop's terror to such an extent that it makes for a pretty strong 
     connection in my (pot)head, anyway.  I think that we're being shown 
     that Surrogate Dreamer Prentice has been having Slothrop's dream.  Yes 
     I do, Skippy.
     
     Also (big also):  I think the use of italics in the Dream section in 
     the Slothrop/current reading section, esp. after young Tyrone has a 
     freak out while watching the Northern Lights display, merits closer 
     attention.  That Voice, those italics, is an echo from section 1.
     
     A-and:  "It was one of those great iron afternoons in London..."  
     Iron, anyone?  'Nother echo.
     
     Re question 7:
     
     The map is another link to the Dream, if I'm understanding it 
     correctly.  A star for every girl that Tyrone's boinked, right?  And 
     the stars and the girls and the boinks correspond to the bombings, 
     right?  Well, then, if so, remember this from section 1:  The "ruinous 
     secret cities of poor, *places whose names he has never heard*..."  
     [Emphasis P.]  If the "he" here is not Prentice (couldn't be, right?) 
     but Tyrone, then the line is a ref to those site visits he's been 
     making.  How about that, Skippy?
     
     Re question 10:
     
     The Hooker quote and the description of "how Slothrop's garden grows" 
     (page 22 in the paperback) recalls the Chap. 1 observation "this is not 
     a disentanglement from, but a progressive knotting into" and builds on 
     other images of waste and entropy, growth and decay...  Think 
     "love-in-idleness."  The Dickinson quote ("Ruin is formal , devil's 
     work..) and the Constant Slothrop verse, with its varied images of 
     "knotting into" ("Loom of God" and "threads of His Love") build on these 
     same images...
     
     Comments?
     
     Chris