GRGR(2): fireflies and a winter no one has guessed at
Andrew Dinn
andrew at cee.hw.ac.uk
Thu Oct 17 03:56:57 CDT 1996
Murthy Yenamandra writes:
> 1) (V22.30) "He likes to tell them about fireflies. English girls don't
> know about fireflies, which is about all Slothrop knows for sure about
> English girls."
> What does Slothrop tell them about fireflies and what don't English girls
> know about them? Are there no fireflies in England?
Just that they exist would be a good opener. There are indeed no
fireflies in England or elsewhere in the UK.
> 2) (V29.17) "But what Lights were these? What ghosts in command? And
> suppose, in the next moment, all of it, the complete night, _were_ to go
> out of control and curtains part to show us a winter no one has guessed
> at...."
> My immediate thought was "nuclear winter", but my on-line webster says
> that the concept dates from 1983. Any ideas on what this "winter no one
> has guessed at" is? Are the "Lights" prefiguring the Kirghiz Lights?
Maybe they are giant marauding swarms of killer fireflies, large
enough to derail trains . . .
More seriously, the lights are used as a transition back from
Slothrop's childhood memories of the Northern Lights and the hotel
fire light to 6:43:16 BDST on Spetember 8th(?) 1943. The question is
asking about the rocket blast, relating it back to the Northern
Lights, rather than the fire light. Where does the rocket's light come
from? Which ghosts control it? Could it be the opening salvo for a
full scale revelation? Young Slothrop worries that the Northern Lights
are precursors to a full scale revelation of Death's northern kingdom.
That's why the mention of winter (and also why Death is white, by the
way) because Death is associated with the frozen North. So, although I
detect overtones of a nuclear holocaust I suspect the image is
intended to convey Slothrop's fears of an armageddon under the control
of some deity or deities.
Andrew Dinn
-----------
And though Earthliness forget you,
To the stilled Earth say: I flow.
To the rushing water speak: I am.
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