GRGR(3): Borders

[keith woodward]

The first part of GR is riddled with border theories.  Already, we have
been introduced to Slothrop's map of London (by virtue of being a map, it
itself is centrally concerned with borders).  Mexico's map, a "glimmering"
(55) echo of Slothrop's map, creates borders within borders by placing a
grid over top of it (for the purpose of reckoning the Poisson
distribution), and ultimately revealing a king of mathematical geography
that can exist by virtue of the rocket falls (but, as Slothrop's parallel
map shows, the distribution equation requires only that there be a
collection of supposed events in order to relegate a landscape to
mathematical borders).  I t seems, also, that the tendency of Pointsman,
Mexico, the Psi Section, etc, to attempt to identify Slothrop with the map
is an attempt to locate portions of the landscape of his identity (if you
will) and to establish the borders of his identity (thus the attempts at
Slothrop/A-4 connections).

Pointsman's considerations of Pavlovian theory further punctuate a notion
of the mapping of the self by imagining "the cortex of the brain as a
mosiac of tiny on/off elements" (55), where breaking down idea of the
opposite is equatable to a break down of psycho/physiological borders (48),
particularly, it seems, between the conscious and the unconscious.  The
result, of course, is an approach to the psyche that is concerned with
mapping the mind of the subject.  What seems curious to me is that
Pointsman locates control through a break-down of those borders, where most
border theory would claim that it is the creation of borders that
establishes control.  Perhaps for Pointsman, it is the control of borders
themselves (the *capacity* to break down which ever borders one chooses)
that reveals final control.

The Zone will itself be another landscape where borders have been broken
down, and the cooperation of American and German Companies (say) breaks
down another type of border (political) that we assume should have existed
during WWII.  Should we be looking at these latter instances through a
Pavlovian frame of reference?  Slothrop?

Keith W