GRGR (8) Intro & Summary

[Michael D. Workman]

THE BREAKDOWN CONTINUES!!

Welcome to GRGR(8), pp. 154-177! Gravity is a myth, the Earth sucks.

Howdy foax, great to have you along for the ride! Kick up on the dash, grab
a beer from the glove box, and inhale heavily on the petrol fumes, we're up
the road with Leni, Franz, Kurt, Pointsman, Gwenhidwy, Mexico, Swanlake,
Katje, Gottfried, and Penelope in the back! Remember the old hitchhiker's
adage of ass, grass or gas... nobody rides for free, and make sure to
participate!

Here's a quick snippet of what you're getting into from the Tim Ware
Hyperarts site, taken directly from Alec McHoul's Summary of GR at
http://www.hyperarts.com/pynchon/gravity/gravity-f.html?gravity.header.html&
gravity.left.html&l.html: 

1.19 Leni leaves her husband Franz and goes to live with a group of
"revolutionaries"; Leni's history; her version of the world contrasted with
Franz's scientistic/engineering view; connection between cinema/film and
revolution, war, science; Kurt Mondaugen (cf. V.) turns up (p161); Jamf's
scientific genealogy (p161) and Franz's involvement with it.  From p163:
the seance at Peter Sachsa's where the late foreign minister, 
Walter Rathenau, is contacted and makes predictions on the future of
science (chemicals, dyes, rocketry, etc.), pp154-167.
 
1.20 Pointsman, Gwenhidwy, Christmas, children. Pointsman gets a blow job
at the Christmas party; Gwenhidwy spills his theory of the City Paranoiac
(p171), pp167-174.
 
1.21 Mexico and Swanlake at the latter's sister's house, Boxing Day 1944.
The pantomime and its parallels with the Katje/Gottfried Oven episode (cf.
4.12.12); the Song of Death; Penelope (Jessica's niece) is visited by her
father's ghost, perhaps, pp174-177.

And a second summary from Michael Davitt Bell's of Williams College, SOME
THINGS THAT "HAPPEN" (MORE OR LESS) IN GRAVITY'S RAINBOW, located at
http://www.williams.edu/Individuals/mbell/RAINBOW.HTM 

[19], 154-167. Leni's difficult (and possibly anachronistic) growth into
feminism. Her fantasy of love vs. radical politics ("AN ARMY OF LOVERS CAN
BE BEATEN")--and also vs. her husband, Franz ("You're the cause-and-effect
man"). Franz--once a student, incidentally, of Laszlo Jamf--meets Kurt
Mondaugen (a school chum and a character in the Südwest Africa episode in
Pynchon's V., also involving Weissmann [Blicero]) who guides him to a job
in rocket development. Leni leaves Franz (taking their daughter, Ilse) for
Peter Sachsa, who--when she arrives--is conducting a séance (he, too, being
a medium) to contact the spirit of Walter Rathenau. His message (166-67):
"All talk of cause and effect is secular history, and
secular history is a diversionary tactic." 

[20], 167-174. The PISCES Christmas party. Pointsman and Maude Chilkes in
the closet. Pointsman and Gwenhidwy go to the latter's flat. Gwenhidwy to
Pointsman (on what we will learn to call the "preterite"): "How they
persist." East London as the "City Paranoiac": Gwenhidwy imagines (or
perceives?) that the poor and outcast have been placed here to absorb the
brunt of rocket attacks from the Southeast.

[21], 174-177. Roger and Jessica have taken her nieces (whose father has
been lost to the War) to a pantomime of Hansel and Gretel, interrupted by a
rocket impact (cf. ending of Gravity's Rainbow?). Penelope (one of the
nieces, whose name should recall Homer's Odyssey) thinks bitterly of
fathers "leaving their children alone in the forest." Roger is more and
more afraid of losing Jessica, and love, to the War or to Jeremy/Beaver who
"is the War." "Oh, Jess. Jessica. Don't leave me."

Some quotes to get us started:

"Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before." --Mae West

"By all means marry: If you get a good wife, you'll become happy; if you
get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher." --Socrates

(TW) designates block and pastes taken from Tim Ware's Hyperarts site.
(GRC) designates info lifted from Steve Weisenbuger's very useful _A
Gravity's Rainbow Companion_, The University of Georgia Press, Athens,
Georgia; 1988 [for our purposes, use pp. 90-101].

Cheers,

Michael Workman
Northwestern University
Department Of Cardiology
________________________________________________________________

"The intelligent man who is proud of his intelligence is like the condemned
man who is proud of his large cell." 

--Simone Weil