GRGR(12) "Plot" & Comments

[David Morris]

>From: "Terrance F. Flaherty"
>
[snip]
>Slothrop is now convinced that he must escape, he lifts a
>car and drives to Nice. There with the aid of Waxwing's card
>he acquires papers as an English war correspondent called
>Ian Scuffing, passage to Zurich, and the address of an
>underground figure there. So Slothrop is playing different
>roles here, his most difficult (impossible?) role is perhaps
>that of Slothrop.
[snip]

Role playing is a long established means of learning about one's self.  
Children spend hours in imaginative roles.  They imitate those they admire.  
They try out new attitudes, copy new styles.  This doesn't end with 
childhood, it's just we get more stuck or comfortable in fewer roles.  What 
does it mean to "be yourself?"

>>Slothrop is growing quite accustomed to his role as
role-player. He has no identity as a conditioned IG Farben
golem. Later Enzian says, "all we know about you is that you
keeps showing up.' Shortly, Slothrop will be named (I think
this the most important scene in the novel) Raketemensch,
thus having the emptiness of his association with the rocket
Confirmed and he will gain Celebrity in  the zone. Slothrop
is the focus of conspiracy and an "illusionist" playing Ian
Scuffling, Max Schlepzig, Plechazunga. But even his
celebrity will not keep him give him personality--the sad
paradox, conditioned personality/no personality or a
pristine state without "ascribed" personality/no
personality. His seems to be a quester, an Oedipus, but his
revelations serve to debilitate and fly apart, and scatter
like broken rocket parts and the lives they shatter.
Knowledge seems to bring not renewal, but collapse. Poor
dude, I am reminded that he once cared, he even prayed
"conventionally to God...for life to win out. But too many
were dying, and presently, seeing no point, he stopped."
Slothrop withdrawn, moving to a dead soul neutrality,
feelingless. numbed by fear and conspiracy. Here he begins
to learn of the rocket, Imipolex G, can you imagine, my
parents? No. My education, god, no I don't pray. As his
belief, his feelings wane, he learns more of the rocket.
Remember Slothrop in the casino, through grand simile
Slothrop equals a rocket:<<

He is a quester. And he is a survivor.  The roles he takes usually are 
thrust upon him by others as he pushes forward, and he embraces them for the 
food and drugs that come along with.  He is on a very wild ride, but does 
this ride result in a "dead soul neutrality, feelingless?"  Or does it lead 
to a form of transcendance?  When he stops praying, is that a bad thing?

David Morris

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