GRGR(4) - Slothrop's Rape Escape

[Terrance F. Flaherty]

JBFRAME at aol.com wrote:

> Hello?
>
> White boy's fear fantasy.  No rape here.  Are we reading the same novel?

Mr. Perez wrote:
PS:  A moment of silence for my old faithful Viking copy of _GR_, it's
all but disintegrated.  I had to buy a new Penguin (effing $16.95 US,
sheesh! - the Viking was $4.95!) to finish the reading.

When Allen Ginsberg died I sat down to read his Howl and the binding broke.
And when our dear Deleuze crashed I was reading VL and it is broken too. Had
to buy a new V. too. So it is on Page 2, of the new Perennial classics
edition, that Pynchon studies the "best technique for jumping through a
plate-glass window (when to scream Geronimo? before or after the glass
breaks?)"  Geronimo, interesting name (LL). Anyway, I have a new copy of GR
too, looks like one I had a long time ago, only it has that ugly mint green
wrapping that Penguin is using these days. In any event, it seems books
don't hold up like they once did. Buy a hard one, I suggest. Hey, my old
copies of Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton and Blake are fairing better than
most blue-chips stocks, even in this mad market, hey, and the intrinsic ROE
can't be beat by S&P.

So, I'm on page 60. TDY Abreaction Ward. Now, we all know or we think we
know why ("Pointsman") is administering Amytal and Tapping TS's brain, but
these "sessions" are not something TRP dreamed up. So, it's Winter 1944 and
there is a war going on and men are getting pretty fucked and it pretty
tough to get rupture ducked, so "stick a needle in my vein" and lets "talk
some more" about BOSTON? Boston, "well no, not see exactly...elevated
subway, only in Boston, steel and a carbon shroud over the ancient bricks--"

Ok, what's happened to Slothrop?

Used to hang out in Little Harlems, no Blue Note or Sweet Basils I assure
you, dark, very dark. Took almost a year before folks would even consider
that I wasn't the Man. Anyway, Slothrop aint got too much experience hangin
wit brothers and that's why those knives look very sharp to his lilly white
self. And, although these Negroes are accustomed to whitebread college boys
trying get rhythm, and maybe even smoke a little sheeit, "her eyes tell him,
in the instant, what he is," and that his mouth harp is "jive accessory."
Now why would she do that? Little paranoid, Harvard boy? Trying to Keep the
Aspidistras Flying? "Come on ...Chillun, let's swing!"

Pack it everywhere you go, Rhy-thm's got me

Terrance