GRGR Continues

[Clare Kennedy]

>From: "David Morris" <fqmorris at hotmail.com>
>To: kennedy_clare at hotmail.com, keithmar at jetlink.net, pynchon-l at waste.org
>Subject: Re: GRGR Continues
>Date: Mon, 15 Nov 1999 08:34:37 CST
>
>>From: "Clare Kennedy"
>>
>>What's going on with Slothrop in this discussion? Can we discuss him?
>>
>[snip]
>>
>>"Signs," the book says, Slothrop will find "Signs…here in the Zone, and
>>ancestors will reassert themselves." What ancestors reassert themselves
>>here
>>in the Zone? What are the signs? Someone asked about "Schwarz" (gerat,
>>kommando).
>>Is Slothrop a "Schwarz" of some sort? Who are Slothrop's parents?
>>Does he have more than one? Does he have two moms and two dads or more? 
>>How
>>about his old man? Is Jamf his old man? Is Lyle his uncle? Is Enzian his
>>brother?
>>What are the signs? If Enzien is Slothrop's brother, what about Hogan
>>Slothrop?
>>If Slothrop is Enzien's  brother what about Blicero? Is Blicero Slothrop's
>>father,
>>if not, than Slothrop and Enzien must have thesame mother, right? >How is
>>Enzien's relationship to his father, Blicero, different from Slothrop's
>>relationship
>>to his father Jamf? What's the most confusing day in Harlem? >Remember, 
>>Tom
>>likes this kind of joke. What does that fruit-loopy toucan say, follow 
>>your
>>nose…
>
>I think there are parallels/mirrors going on with the four "Sons":
>Slothrop, Enzian, Tchitcherine, and Gottfried.  I don't think linking their
>Mothers will be productive, except in the general sense of "Motherhood."
>The Fathers can be more directly compared as agents of the War:
>----------
>(176.20)  They'll always tell you that the fathers are "taken," but fathers
>only leave - that's what it really is.  The fathers are all covering for
>each other, that's all.

How does that parallel mirror work? I don't get this quote about fathers. 
Isn't this penelope? In Gravity's Rainbow (not that I doubt that you all 
know this already, but in GR, it is often difficult to determine to whom we 
should attribute what, so we must be very careful to figure out who is 
saying what, which narrator, which character, OK, the fathers are more the 
agents of war, but Penelope waits for her husband to return, in this case 
her father because Tom is playing another nasty freudian joke here, 
remember, her father is now a ghost--a shell. Anyhows, I think I like your 
take on "motherhood" here, makes me wonder about tom's Mothers, his women, 
like his stephen hero--joyce, I think. That's why you don't find too many 
females getting Pynchon, alotta men don't understandd his females either, 
they need to know that Tom was a catholic, a real catlic, yes, and Mary is 
his muse, just ask his buddy Henry Adams.



>----------
>The War is primarily a male institution.  It conditions everyone into
>believing "that we are meant for work and government, for austerity:  and
>these shall take priority over love, dreams, the spirit, the senses and the
>other second-class trivia that are found among the idle and mindless hours
>of the day....Damn them, they are wrong.  They are insane." (177.5)

This is the war--the one that has "replaced" mother nature, the War with a 
big dubbaya like in it's a mad mad mad mad world. Insane, right, but who can 
stop the real Business of the War? Dying men call out for mother and she 
welcomes them all Home. This is Roger/Narrator here, right? Roger says 
beaver is the war. Why? He also says his mother is the war. Why? Roger is a 
young man, he is in love with another man's women, he thinks jessica is 
"catching the war" because he is afraid to lose her. How many sweethearts 
lost their lovers? Come on Roger, stiff upperlip, don't you know there is 
war going on old boy, but Roger is sooo important, because he wants to love, 
but he doesn't know how. He thinks jessica is just catching the war, but she 
has it like everyone else, even her sisters kids have caught the war, its 
infected the world.

>
>In that context Jessica, the feminine, is the refuge from the war, but more
>specifically it is "the Union" of the pair:
>----------
>(177.20)You go from dream to dream inside me.  You have passage to my last
>shabby corner, and there, among the debris, you've found life.  I'm no
>longer sure which of all the words, images, dreams or ghosts are "yours" 
>and
>which are "mine."  It's past sorting out.  We're both someone new now,
>someone incredible...
>     His act of faith.
>----------
>David Morris
>
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This is Roger's wish. Sorry Rog old boy, you can't both be new.
>

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