Discussion opener for GRGR(9)

[Andrew Dinn]

Foax,

Discussion of GRGR(8) is completed and we move on to discuss GRGR(9)
and read GRGR(10) both of which activities will continue from today
until 7th Feb.

As usual, I have some questions and comments which I will present
below. I am interested in any new text, graphics or video which I will
install below

    http://www.cee.hw.ac.uk/~andrew/pynchon-group-read.html

Monte Davis posted me a lovely image of von Braun and Walter
Dornberger (the latter the army general in charge of the rocket
program from the early 30s onwards, who later went on to work for
Rocketdyne then become a VP in Bell Aerospace). I have installed this
with the other A4 piccies available under the resources section of the
group read page.

Before I provide some opening comments on section 9, I'll remind you
that section 10 is on pp 154 - 167 of the Viking/Penguin edition of
GR. The opening words are

    They are shivering and hungry [. . .]

and the closing words are

    [. . .] Is God really Jewish?

Before posting my openers I will remind you that I have produced
myself a little line counter to help pinpoint GRGR references. The
Viking/ Penguin edition has 40 or 41 lines per page (that's logical
lines - i.e. including the blank ones between paragraphs - rather than
actual printed lines). I have a piece of card with 41 ticks down the
side and I am using it to identify the line number for each citation.
So, if I write pp.ll after a reference (where pp and ll are numbers)
that means page pp, line ll.

Now here are the questions for GRGR(9):

 1) `habitually blank' (136.39) Why are these words italicised? Oh,
     and whose are they by the way?

 2) 137.4 onwards. What does Pointsman's dream signify? Or is it just
     that he's been taking too muchof that amphetamine and benzedrine?

 3) `sinister' (138.4) Is this playing on the unaccustomed `left'
     turn he makes? Whose is the name? Also, note the play on `light'
     in `light tapping' (138.5). cf also `but it already is light' in
     Pirate's opening dream, Roger and Jessica's light getting `very
     red' and maybe even `the Khirgiz Light'?

 4) `paradoxical phase' Does this word signify beyond it's Pavlovian
     roots?

 5) `Spectro_{E}' (138.23) What does the subscript E stand for?
     Ethereal?

 6) `helping fill out the threes prediction, which lately's been
     lagged behind' (138.36). Ignoring `lagged' for `lagging', look!
     even Roger the oh so objective statistician cannot help thinking
     in terms of "appetition", nature struggling to keep up with the
     dictates of his formulae, when he "knows" that each outcome is
     independent of the preceding ones. So what is Pynchon's stand
     here? Is he making a point about human nature and backsliding
     into credulous belief in the routine and ritual of theory - where
     prediction conditions expectation to the level of presumed
     certainty? Or is he criticising the validity of Roger's
     "knowledge", a presumption of independence being just as arrogant
     as, if not more so than, the presumption of a connection or
     cause?

 7) `When it does happen we are content to call it "chance" (140.2).
     Or we have been persuaded.' Is this just paranoia or does this
     exemplify the point made in the previous question that notions of
     `randomness' embody as much metaphysical presumptionusness as
     those of `determinacy'?

 8) `What holds him back' (140.29). Well?

 9) `He is my Pierre Janet' (142.2). Anyone know enough to explain
     this analogy.

10) `but the underlying structure is the turning face' (142.31).Any
     thoughts on the significance of this? Childhood terrors? Orpheus?
     What? And there are several other scenes where a face is turned
     and an eye is caught which seem to relate to the Orpheus legend
     e.g, Slothrop catching Katje's eye in the casino just as he
     recognises her preterite nature and the threat to himself of
     preterition.

11) `Even if the American's not legally a murderer he is sick' (144.7)
     Boy! that's rich!

12) `We must never lose control' (144.36) Double boy! He continues
     `The thought of him lost in the world of men, after the war,
     fills me with a deep dread I cannot extinguish [...]'. These
     lines are really scary. Pointsman recognises that he appears
     `creepy' to others but only as a physical thing. But this is the
     mental creeps of a higher order which, of course, he cannot
     recognise.

13) `salmon', `faun', `black', `ochre', `yellow', `heliotrope',
     `sea-green', etc. (145.5 onwards) Nora has the most colourful
     reveries. Later on at her next appearance (149.3 onwards) we see
     more colours again. Just character colour or does it signify?

14) `This surrender is his only gift' (145.32) Just had to remark on
     this lovely echoing phrase.

15) `Ronald Cherrycoke' (146). Love that name. Also, love the way he is
     used to reel in the story of St Blaise and his Angel here and on
     page 150. Laurence Sterne eat your heart out.
     
16) `machines of black metal and glass gingerbread' (147.10). Anyone
     have a clue as to what the gingerbread machine is? (presumably it
     is in there to raise an echo of the witch's house?).

17) `the best theory of how is Rollo's' (147.26). Anyone know enough
     physiology to validate the melanocyte-CNS link?

18) `sooner or later everyone out here has to go Epidermal. No
     exceptions.' Heh heh. I can just hear Vincent Price doing the
     cameo role.

19) `Our history is an aggregate of lost moments' (149.1). Now that's
     what I call an epigram.

20) `All the radii of the room are hers' (149.28). Again just had to
     mention this lovely description.

21) `triskelion' (150.19) symbolic figure of 3 legs or lines radiating
     from a common centre (Isle of Man symbol, anyone).

22) `nacre' (150.20). As in nacreous, but apparently it denotes the
     shellfish which yields mother of pearl as well as that yielded.

23) `motes beyond designating' (151.1) ??? and why does it happen on Palm
     Sunday?

24) `No one else on the mission seemed to've had radio communication'
     (151.12). Is it possible for this sort of radio effect to occur?
     In what circumstances?

25) `rainbowed Valkyrie' (151.29). !!!

26) `Wimpe the IG-Man' (152.19). Later on at the seance he is the
     V-mann. Who is he, though? What is his significance here and
     elsewhere in the novel?

27) `. . .' (152.27 onwards). Identify the character for each voice.
     In particular, whose head is the frog in?

28) `That's a complicated social set-up' (153.30). Too right it is.
     But is ther not also a veiled hint that this is true for all of
     us? We are as much (if not more so) what we are seen to be as
     what we see ourselves to be or the eye/I that does the seeing. `a
     Christian, a Western European' is conditioned toward the view
     that we are the eye/I doing the seeing but there is so much truth
     in the (more) Eastern notion that we are a thing perceived rather
     than a thing perceiving and along with this view goes a
     diminution of the role of self perception (the notion of the
     thing perceived perceiving itself is at yet one more remove, is a
     concept anterior to, or better perhaps to say parasitic on, that
     of the notion of the I as a thing perceived).

29) `KPD' (153.40) Kommunist Partei Deutschland?


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