GRGR(11): More on Webley

[David Morris]

>From: "Mike Crowley"
>
>"I would set you free, if I knew how.  But it isn't free out here.  All the 
>animals, the plants, the minerals, even other kinds of men, are being 
>broken and reassembled every day, to preserve an elite few, who are the 
>loudest to theorize on freedom, but the least fee of all.  I can't even 
>give you hope that it will be different someday--that They'll come out, and 
>forget death, and lose Their technology's elaborate terror, and stop using 
>every other form of life without mercy to keepwhat haunts men down to a 
>tolerable level--and be like you instead, simply here, simply alive...." 
>(230)
>
>Sentiments like the final ones, being "simply here, simply alive," strike 
>me as a bit New Age-y these days, even a bit empty.  Is this an acceptable 
>alternative to the death-obsessed culture of Their technology or to the 
>Transcendence-through-annihilation we see from Blicero?  The repetition of 
>"simply" reminds me that this Silvernail's sentimentality (what's a better 
>word to describe his attitude here?) is a bit simple-minded.  He can't give 
>us the hope that someday They'll as at one with the world as rats in cages? 
>Geez, is that what passes for optimism in this world?
>

"Be Here Now" is "New Age-y," but not necessarily empty.  Spontaneity in 
thought and action is cornerstone for inspiration.  It is, I think, at the 
heart of Slothrop's character, which stands in opposition to determinism and 
the past.

David Morris

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