GRGR(4) Slothrop's Sodium amytal fantasy

[Paul Mackin]

Jeremy gets an A in my book for his decoding of the dream. One thing occurs
to me that I was also reminded of in Heikki's post of a day or two ago. The
GR Companion is probably no longer available to many p-listers. It supplies
a lot of detail on much of what is being referred to. For example it gives
the lyrics to Cherokee which describe that  rather pastoral view of
White/Indian relations referred to. By the way the song was just about as
familiar at the time as anything of the Beetles in the sixties. What was
being heard might have been a big band version. Or possibly have been
closer to Charlie Parker's use of the tune and harmonics  as referred to a
few lines later, the former being my guess however given the time period
(all explained in great detail in GR Companion). One thing I'm not sure
about is whether as Jeremy says Whites would be out of place in that
Roxbury club. I'd assumed they'd be about as out of place as they were in
big flashy Harlem nightclubs of the era. Which is not at all. It was the
Blacks who were out of place--except as entertainers and washroom
attendants. This is just a guess. Anyone know?

                                                                    P.
Jeremy Osner wrote:

> Herewith, a reasonably close reading of pp. 62-71 (assuming I can keep
> it up throughout...)
>
> The fantasy is introduced by Slothrop's reply to the doctor (Spectro?)
> asking if he can see anything: "no, not *see* exactly..."; then we are
> thrust abruptly into Slothrop's consciousness.
>
> The first scene takes place in a night club in Roxbury, which I'm
> assuming to be a "colored" section of Boston. Before we get there we
> have an image of an elevated train (not necessarily one that Slothrop is
> riding on; there is an implication a bit later on that he has a car;
> maybe this is outside the club or something he saw on his way there) and
> a song. The night club has strong sensory impressions associated with
> it; "Black faces, white tablecloth, gleaming *very sharp knives*...
> tobacco and "gage" smoke richly blended,... tart as wine..." The
> interviewing doctor has his last line here, and the rest of the episode
> is given over entirely to Slothrop's fantasy. (A note on that last line:
> the doctor says "That was 'sho nuff', Slothrop?" -- that really pounds
> home for me the clinical setting that the fantasy is taking place
> within. Why?)
>
> The club is a black club frequented by a lot of white Harvard students
> -- they don't really belong there, as is made clear by the following: "A
> woman turns to look at him [Slothrop] from a table. Her eyes tell him,
> in an instant, what he is." Immediately after this realization the scene
> shifts to the bathroom upstairs, where he is throwing up and drops his
> "jive accessory" harmonica in the toilet.
>
> What is the song "Cherokee"? Pynchon makes quite a bit of this being the
> song that's playing when Slothrop goes on his submarine excursion -- it
> means nothing to me. Has anyone heard it? It makes the white students
> and their dates look like "dolled up redskins" (actually the "moving
> rose lights" do; but it seems to me pretty closely connected to the song
> that's playing) -- it's "one more lie about white crimes." Could this
> tie in with what Matt Weiner was talking about like 2 years ago
> regarding smallpox-infested blankets being a lie about white crimes? And
> how does it fit in to the scene? Suddenly we're headed down to NYC,
> "drive fast maybe get there for the last set", which I took as implying
> that Slothrop has a car, but I guess it needn't, and we're treated to a
> very melodic tribute to "Yardbird" Parker. It seems to me like Pynchon
> is saying the performance of Cherokee that's going on downstairs from
> Slothrop is an instance of the new style of music influenced by Parker.
> Or something?
>
> Back to Slothrop. He's contemplating going down the toilet after his
> harmonica, but worried about leaving his ass open prey for hypothetical
> butt-fucking Negroes. We don't see him make the decision to go ahead
> after the harp, but in the next sentence he's on his way down the pipes
> and a group of Negroes is preparing to rape him. Some thoughts: he
> spends a bit of time meditating on shoeshine boy "Red"'s actual name
> being Malcolm (reference to Mr. X?) because "Red" answered when the
> principal attacker said "Slip the talcum to me, Malcolm!" Why talcum? I
> never really thought of using talcum in conjunction with anal sex... Any
> ways, Slothrop escapes handily and makes his way down the plumbing.
> (Reminiscent, to me anyway, of Alice's fall down the rabbit hole.)
>
> It took me many readings to figure this out and I'm still not sure about
> it, but I think the next scene change comes at the beginning of the
> third graph on p. 66. The flush has come and gone and he has just
> realized that "he hasn't felt the touch of a hard wall [which you would
> expect plenty of in a sewer] since he started to tumble, if that indeed
> is what he's doing [?]." Now he's in an open space in a watery light,
> looking for "contacts". He's still plagued by wayward shit from the
> previous scene. Nothing happens but there is a dark sense of foreboding
> as we move into scene 4.
>
> Which is perhaps the weirdest part of the whole sequence, with the
> bizarre ongoing gag about there being "one of each of everything". "Red
> River Valley" gives an opening for a jab at New Deal communists on p.
> 68; why oh why does he say "round black iron in the middle of the night"
> out of nowhere? We meet Crutchfield (Crouchfield) and his little pard
> Whappo -- Magenta and green make a cameo appearance -- visions of
> carnality -- then a dialog which I think takes place between Slothrop
> and the interviewing doctor, concerning whether there is only one
> instance of every type or not, who is real, who is necessary. Back to
> Roxbury suddenly for the obligatory you-never-did-the-Kenosha-Kid
> reference.
>
> --
> Don' take life so serious son, it ain't nohow permanent.
> --Porky Pine