GRGR(6) - Ep. 15

[rj]

This section begins, atypically, in the past tense. Slothrop had been in
the "nut ward" for less time than expected. He realises or suspects he's
being followed. (114) Darlene works at St Veronica's. Slothrop only
vaguely remembers Darlene and Mrs Quoad: they are "independent of his
shorthand of stars." (115) Has Slothrop been set up here, the memory
"planted" while he was in St Veronica's, perhaps? The letter to Nalline
could also have been something he imagined he wrote while drugged, like
the letters to the Kenosha Kid. Darlene does seem to know something
about the rocket-erection connection, too, as Gary pointed out. (120)
And, as Gary also noted, later Mrs Quoad turns out to be someone else
entirely. (Or, does Darlene assume her identity?) 

Darlene: "You came back! Ah Tyrone, you're *back*" (115, her emph.)
Shock? Surprise? Why? Or is it simple joy. (I think it's this: I like
Darlene.)

The section at 115.26, as the memory of previously being at Mrs Quoad's
flat begins "reassembling" for Slothrop, could represent: a) the
surfacing of a suppressed memory; or b) some type of hypnotic suggestion
being enacted (don't forget that Mrs Quoad's a "witch".)

The names of the wine jellies -- Lafitte Rothschild and Bernkastler
Doktor (116) -- seem to have some significance beyond being wine
varieties, do they?

The metaphors for war weaponry in the section begin with the "cretonne
camouflage" (116.5) and end with the Fire of Paradise/mustard gas
analogy. (119) Just like Mrs Quoad and Darlene ("Show a little
backbone." "Don't you know there's a war on.") we laugh at Slothrop's
ridiculous predicament in the Disgusting English Candy Drill,
trivialising or setting aside the metaphoric allusions to the ways death
is wrought in war that Pynchon (Slothrop?) is making (right down to that
"hopeless holocaust" he describes his tongue as.)

Another death metaphor: at the height of the explosion the windowshade
has "gone all to white and black lattice of mourning-cards." (120) Is
this Slothrop's perception? A-and, why doesn't *Slothrop* know that the
bombs always fall on the places where he makes his conquests? Is it
another case of "repression", like Katje's in the previous section? I'm
tempted to see all the ominous war and death imagery as Slothrop's here.
If he's been visiting all the V-bomb "incidents" (24.10, is the
euphemism Slothrop's?) as a therapeutic exercise then why aren't the
coincidences apparent to him? He's been getting a list of all
"yesterday's hits", so eventually he'd have to cotton on, you'd think?
(24)

Is there some sort of a time loop at play here? Or is it just that
Slothrop is really dense? He's obsessed with the V2 which has his name
on it: why can't he see the connection which is so obvious to everyone
else?

The existence of the watcher through "the crack in the orange shade",
and the taunting question ("where ... *would* you say ...?" my emph.),
seems another instance where the role of author/reader is being
foregrounded (along with the possibilities that someone is there, or
that Slothrop imagines someone is there.) Why didn't the bomb fall after
the last time Slothrop was there with Darlene ... ? (Because he never
was ... ?) Further, is it a rhetorical question? 'On this house' being
the obvious answer? And does the question address Slothrop, too, himself
one of these "keepers of maps, specialists at surveillance"? Is this
watcher in fact *also* Slothrop?

best