Bianca as Shadowchild

[Charles_Sligh at BAYLOR.EDU]

Bernard Duyfhuizen has done one of the best explorations of "picturing" Bianca.  
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
>> 
>> 
>> 
>
>