GRGR(3) - The Map(s) #2

[Michael Perez]

David wrote:
"Slothrop's is a map of love, beauty, heart-felt emotion.  It
symbolizes
the kind of salvation, however temporary, Jessica & Roger have in each
other's embrace.  The stars DON'T symbolize the females, but his own
heart's momentary pull, which he 'boobishly consciencious[ly]' attends,
he enshrines.  He is celebrating his ablility for love in the midst of
the hell of V-2 London.
"I don't think these stars are ever stated as representing 'conquests.'

Any encounter will do.  That they coincide with future bomb hits is
'miraculous' in some sense.  Will we ever KNOW the mechanism?"

Slothrop's map is a device used for Tantivy's amusement, that it
becomes the obsession of others is not immediately known to Slothrop. 
We find out much later that he made much of it up.  Remember, too, that
Slothrop dates the stars, so we cannot be sure of their recording
actual encounters of whatever type.  Perhaps, it is that he visits the
V-2 sites and records them as encounters, post-dates them, and then
delivers his amorous reports to Tantivy.  Then, Bloat photographs the
map for Pointsman who concludes that there is evidence of some sort of
tumescent precogitive ability.  This reading is not as miraculous, but
then I don't believe in miracles and I'm not convinced that there is
any evidence that Pynchon does either.

Michael



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