GRGR1: Discussion opener for section 1

[Tom Stanton]

> 1)  The opening dream sequence steps down into an enframing narrative

>     set in the apartment. Why does Pynchon start in medias res and in a

>     nested context?  What does this achieve?



The reader is "incoming" into the narrative.  The descent is a "knotting
into."

 

> 2)  What does the *dream* signify?



For me, this sequence has always evoked impressions of the the Nazi
death

trains that carried millions of Jews and gypsies and others to gas
chambers.
Each step in the evacuation moves the dreamer into less space and under
more
control. This also is a "knotting into."