GRGR(6) - Ep. 15 Reader Dissonance.

[Paul Mackin]

On Mon, 19 Jul 1999, rj wrote:
> 
> I think this line of argument comes a real cropper when you try to apply
> it to _M&D_.

M&D is a lot different. The character development is more conventional I
guess you'd say. M and D are fairly straight fictional characters based on
well-known historic names if not well-known personages. I LIKED
them both.
 
> But even so, how often in real life do you get quite so much information
> about an individual? I mean, I don't really have such vivid access to my
> own subconscious, let alone anyone else's. And, in GR we do get to see a
> lot of what the characters do and say as well: what Slothrop was like in
> that Roseland Ballroom, what he's like at his job, with his women, his
> desk, his food; what Katje was up to, both officially and clandestinely,
> in Holland and London. And, there's historical context galore: it's
> WWII; Slothrop's an American N.C.O.(right acronynm?)

No question there is a lot of detail about S and K's development, both
ontogeny-wise and phylogeny-wise at least back a few generations. Our only
difference might be what it adds up to with respect to whether we can  
care about what they as individual people have done or will have had 
happen to them. We know that, whatever they have done or have realized
about the implications of what they have done, multitudes of  others have
done and realized as much or worse. True these others did not
have the advantage of a p-workup, which of course is your point.

S is a lieutenant, which is commissioned officer rather than a
non-commissioned officer (NCO) like, say, a sergeant. 

			P.