GRGR(1): Some ideas

[Andrew Dinn]

Foax,

Here are some more detailed comments taken from notes I made as I read
section 1. They are a bit rambling and somewhat speculative but I have
tried here and there to tie them in with other people's comments were
I can. But first I must say how astounded I am at the volume and
quality of postings so far. Let's hope we can keep the momentum up
until page 177 (or beyond).



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

----- 8< -------- 8< -------- 8< -------- 8< -------- 8< -------- 8< ---

Page 3 para 1:

The `comes' in the opening sentence clearly has sexual overtones, as
indeed does the whole notion of a rocket firing from initial erection
to final orgasmic explosion. So, is this screaming meant to accompany
a new birth? into this life or the afterlife? or one after the other
as in some kind of death + rebirth? I really like Chris' idea that
this is Gottfried's death dream but I think Gottfried's rocket is
fired at Easter and the dream occurs just before Xmas. Mind you,
there's an interesting angle - the Easter/Xmas ritual killings of the
young and old king (aka Gottfried/Blicero). Perhaps Gottfried is dying
in order to be reborn at Xmas. Only that would mean Pirate dreams his
death before Gottfried experiences it - but then in the cycle of the
seasons or of life, death and rebirth who is to say what comes
first.

Oh boy and here's another funny. I keep typing Gottfired instead of
Gottfried - in fact, either way it can be happily misread. Poor
Gottfried gto fired and got fried.

As for the dream being an entry into Hell. Well, I think that comes
later when Slothrop/Orpheus goes down into the depths after his harp
and his Katje/Eurydice.

Also, if this is the first stirrings before an imminent birth then
amongst other things it is the book or rather the main, enframing
story which is being born and which we drop into on the next page. And
perhaps that ties in with the ending where the story dies as the film
stops and we drop into the enframing reality of the cinema. If we
really do come back around to the start and to rebirth then each
reading involves a descent lower and lower each time round the cycle.

So, where were we. Oh yes, the first paragraph. I was struck by the
use of the word `now' at the end of the second sentence, the
contemporaneity being further emphasised by the use of `before' and
the next sentence `It is too late'. Now this may only be intended to
express the pecularities of dream logic, the lack of coherence and
continuity. But I felt this was intended to emphasise the break
between current and past experience, introducing the notion of
time-slicing, experiencing life in instants which occur and pass like
frames in a film and are no longer accessible. That is maybe why there
is nothing to compare it to `now' even though it has happened
`before'. This sentence establishes the cinematic notion of experience
- only the current moment is really present - on behalf of the subject
of the dream. I suspect Pynchon is setting up a contrast with the
reverie or sense of unbounded immersion in things which Slothrop later
feels - the mindless pleasures of the original title which forestall
death by removing the discontinuity with the past which traps us in
the rush into the future. The dream's subject has zero temporal
bandwidth. Slothrop's bandwidth, later on, is infinite.

Page 3 para 2

So, it's too late and it's all theatre. Isn't this what the preterite
in the book feel - that life for them is just theatre. So, maybe also
this is a Pirate's premonition of preterition. But `theatre' is also
what an Evacuation during nuclear war would be.

The `iron queen' must be Victoria,although I don't remember there
being a statue of her at Victoria station. Anyway, the `girders' and
`the fall of a crystal palace' identify the location as one of the old
London railway termini. I think the `fall' is only meant to refer to
the Crystal Palace as an echo. The stations themselves are `crystal
palaces' or would be if it were not for the dirt. Notice also that
after the initial scream we have no sound here nor later on (the
crashing does nto actually occur). The other senses, touch, sight,
smell return but no sound. Is Pirate's dream like a silent film?  Or
is it just that the screaming is still present, blocking out any other
noise?

Page 3 para 3

The other passengers are `second sheep'? i.e. the preterite? as in the
division of the sheep and the goats.

Page 3 para 4

`Is this the way out?' The way out of life, perhaps?

Why is this a `progressive knotting into' rather than a
`disentanglement from'? Perhaps this is meant to refer to rebirth and
the weaving of a new life more complex than that which preceded it or
than the between lifes state. However, I take this comment to be a
reference outside of the dream to the book and beyond. The book does
not disentangle any of its threads, rather it weaves them into more
and more complex tangles. Somewhat reminiscent of Moby Dick's
wonderfully punned opening chapter title `Loomings' which refers both
to sights glimpsed on the horizon of the future and to the loom image
used to describe Ishmael's weaving of the story. But it also refers to
science and to the `reality' science tries to construct. Follow one
strand, pull and tug at it and you run into other strands which
tighten their grip around each other until they become irretrievably
crossed and knotted, inseparable, impenetrable.

Page 4 para 1

`A judgement from which there is no appeal'? Beats me.

Page 4 para 2

The terminus seems to draw on images from the sidings and prison
blocks at Auschwitz. The elevator and passengers seem like a direct
rip-off of scenes in Metropolis. Has Pirate been to the movies
recently?

Page 4 para 4

This reprise of the rocket noise (`Screaming holds across the sky')
suggests that the screaming may have continued all through the dream.

Page 4 para 5

The reprise of the word `light' mentioned in the previous para and the
cadences of `*But it already is light*' and `How long has it been
light?' lead beautifully to the next sentence `All this while, light
has come percolating in, . .'. The pacing, the pause then slight
emphasis required when the third `light' is reached, capture precisely
the transition from the dream order and the dream focus to the waking
focus on the light which has been invading Pirate's consciousness and
the emergence of the waking order - in all it's post-Bacchanal
disorder.

The pace changes at this point and, instead of the slow, ominous,
short or broken sentences of the dream narrative we have a more bouncy
pace, one long sentence comprising a dozen convoluted and joky
descriptions, like a switch from an early silent film to a
cartoon. And then the kiss-off comes running onto page 5 with Pirate's
mates `rosy as Dutch peasants'. But unlike Pirate the peasants are
dreaming of their certain `resurrection'. Another sign that
`mindlessness', `reverie', `dreaming' are states of grace, routes to
Heaven, which must make waking up, consciousness of the `real', the
`present', the opposite, routes to Hell. So perhaps Pirate's dream of
the rocket falling has also been another `fall' into consciousness and
the possibility of death.

Page 5 para 3

`champagne split' - apparently a `split' is a half-bottle of liquor.

Page 5 para 6

`the politics of bacteria' and `the soil's stringing of rings and
chains in nets only God can tell the meshes of' ties in with the
`knotting into' image and also with the later comments on page 10
about the `weaving of molecules' clearly telling Death `to fuck off'.
The bananas not only represent `assertion-through-structure' (p 10)
but the `labyrinthine' (p 10) complexity of that structure is also a
challenge to man and science - only a God could perform such a
`conjuring trick'. This is an ironic riposte to von Braun's sterile
notion that it is the continuity of energy and matter which guarantees
immortality. Pynchon realises that identity and continuity of
existence is about regularity and repeatability, form not content, and
that form is labyrinthine in its possibilities for complexity and
ambiguity.

Page 6 para 1

The end of this paragraph `yes amazing but true' begs the question of
who is talking here? We need to be told this? On the previous page we
are told `His name is Capt. Geoffrey ("Pirate") Prentice. he is
wrapped in a thick blanket, a tartan of orange, rust and scarlet.',
external description, but then don't we suddenly dive into Pirate's
head with `His skull feels made of metal'? This is Pirate's phrasing
of how his head feels, not the narrators, not what Pirate is thinking
but how he would verbalise it. Same with `How awful. How bloody awful
. . .' two paragraphs down. Similarly, page 7 para 2 has `Oughtn't he
t be doing something . . . get on to the operations room at Stanmore,
. . .' and so on. Throughout this section we keep switching in and out
of Pirate's head, or rather in and out of his voice.

Page 6 para 2

The gasworks are the large gas storage cylinders adjacent to Battersea
power station over the river from Chelsea. The description of the
power station as `crustals grown in morning's beaker' is beautifully
accurate given the cold of the day, particularly with reference to the
`gnarled emissions of steam and smoke'.

Page 6 para 6

`"Incoming mail"' is quoted so maybe Pirate did whisper it? Whatever,
the peculiar thing is that this is before he gets the call to tell him
that there is some mail for him in the rocket. Did he know in advance
that Katje would plant a note? Or is this a premonition (someone else
whispered it?!).

Page 7 paras 1, 2, 3

The last of these paras picks up the `now' of the opening. The timing
of these paragraphs is brilliant. The calm of the first para as Pirate
watches the rocket and its trail disappear, the racing disjointed
phrasing of the second paragraph, the heavy thud of the decision
 `Pick bananas' pierced by the pangs of anticipation and fear in those
two nows.

Page 7 para 2

`the planet of love . .' So, although she is not named, V(enus) is
present here alongside the A(4) just as it reaches its apogee and
begins its fall (the A4 becomes the V2).

Page 7 para 4

The greenhouse is yet another attempt to tell Death `to fuck off'.
Perhaps also it represents an attempt to establish little Eden, to
reestablish the world before the first `fall'.

Page 7 para 10

What exactly does BOQ mean? Bet Or Quits?

Page 8 para 1

Who is reciting this banana recipe here? Is this a half-narrative/
half-speech rendering of Pirate's thoughts? Or is it what he would
have said if someone was in the kitchen next to him? And does he sing
`I would coat all the booze-corroded stomachs of England. . . .'
Bizarre, and yet more bizarre still is that as a reader you don't
normally even raise a mental eyebrow, just lap it up and rush on to
the next para.

Page 8 para 8

`Will we have to stop watching the sky?' This reminds me of some corny
old sci-fi film where at the end everyone is warned to keep watching
the skies. It must be deliberate to link wartime bomb paranoia with
50s aliens paranoia, nix?

Page 8 para 9

Osbie's interruption serves to undermine Pirate's paranoia, as happens
so often throughout the book. `It's another of his damned touches'.

Page 9 para 2

`SNIPE and SHAFT'? Never heard of a pub with such a name. There is,
however, a pub called the Tantivy in Watford, complete with foxhunting
scene on the pub sign (tantivy, like yoiks and tally-ho, is a hunting
cry).-

Page 11 para 1

Pirate drinks banana mead which feels `as if it's time, time in its
summer tranquility, he swallows'. This harks back to the theme of
mindless pleasures as an escape from present consciousness and the
threat of death, with bananas in all their organic complexity as the
effective agent.

Page 11 para 2

`"I haven't even done me morning push-ups yet."'. Pirate, like any
nouveau, social climber from Tooting or elsewhere, would never drop
into Cockney-speak in front of Bloat, who went to Oxford, or indeed
anyone with whom he was not intimate. So, impressed as I am by our
boy's knowledge of the argot, this use of `me' for `my' jars every
time I read it.

Page 13 para 1

`pixilated' apparently means deranged or disoriented and is derived
from `pixie-led'.

Page 13 para 2

Anyone have an idea who Eugene Sue was?

Page 14 para 1

First mention of `Them' aka `The Firm'. Butclearly theer are many
`Thems' and many `Uses'. In fact, as many as They require for Their
purposes!


Page 14 para 1

`glyptic' means carved with patterns.


Page 15 para 2

First mention of election and preterition and, oh boy, does the idea
that the domains of preterite and elect migth be redefined throw the
Establishment into an hysterical uproar.