Bianca as Shadowchild

[Charles_Sligh at BAYLOR.EDU]

Bernard Duyfhuizen has done one of the best explorations of "picturing" Bianca.  
His essay is called "A Suspension Forever at the Hinge of Doubt:  The 
Reader-Trap of Bianca in _GR_."  Duyfhuizen examines the "age" problem, 
"fetishization," and gendered reading. Fine piece of writing/reading.

This can be accessed over the internet:  go to _Postmodern Culture_ at UVA--this 
essay appeared in the Sept. 1991 issue.

I especially send this out to DYB as a parting "gift"--come back and talk 
anytime--if you choose, you could be "conditionally" "'here'" but "once or twice 
removed"!!  A ghost on the list--already a legend.





On Thu, 06 Mar 1997 07:41:44 -0800 (PST) redbug at hyperarts.com (RedBug) wrote:

>Hey Joe:
>
>As John Krafft pointed out to me a long time ago, Bianca is 16 or 17.
>Slothrop just *thinks* (*hopes*) she's 11 or 12.
>
>Bianca is conceived during the filming of Alpdrucken ("I think
>Bianca is [Schlepzig's] child. She was conceived while we were filming
>this." - p.395)
>
>Ilse was conceived after Franz Poekler saw Alpdrucken ("he knew that had
>to be the night, Alpdrucken night, that Ilse was conceived." -
>p.397)
>
>Leni was pregnant with Ilse when she was seeing Peter Sachsa, e.g. "Ilse is
>awake, and crying. [...] They ought to try Peter after all. He'll have
>milk." (p.163); and Sachsa is killed during a street action in 1930 ("Taken
>forcibly over in 1930 by a blow from a police truncheon [...]" - p.152)
>
>Placing Bianca's conception, say, 6 months to a year before Ilse's
>(depending on how long it took for Alpdrucken to reach the theatres and how
>long it took Franz Poekler to go see it), Bianca's birth  would have been
>in 1928 or 1929.
>
>Slothrop meets Bianca aboard the Anubis in 1945.
>
>Thus Bianca must be 16 or 17. Correct?
>
>RedBug
>
>On Thu, 6 Mar 1997, Joe Varo wrote:
>
>> In my attempt to get through with my re-reading of GR before M&D comes out
>> (and hopefully re-read Vineland before that time also), the other day I
>> got to the Anubis episode and the Slothrop-Bianca sex scene.
>> 
>> The whole scene makes me shudder and Bianca brings to mind a music video
>> from many years ago.  I think it was by a band called The Art of Noise and
>> the video features this little girl, definitely pre-teen, but perhaps
>> younger than Bianca's supposed 11-12.  She is dressed up in a leather or
>> vinyl mini dress and has gaudy purple and green (or was it magenta and
>> green) make-up on.  All through the video she is smashing up musical
>> instruments along in (if I recall) a railroad yard.
>> 
>> I always found this video rather disturbing.  Anyone else remember it?
>> Anyone else ever see Bianca like this?  If not, how does everyone picture
>> Bianca?
>> 
>> Joe
>> 
>> 
>> 
>
>