GRGR(9): Welcome

[keith woodward]

Welcome past the Zero.  I'm going to just forget about a lengthy summary,
the chapters seem pretty clear.  If anyone wants one, contact me and I will
post one this evening (I've been quite busy)...

Quickly then:

2.1

Slothrop, on leave with Tantivy and Teddy Bloat, are having lunch with a
few French dancers on the beach when, suddenly, an apparently foam-born
figure appears in the surf.  A-and she seems to be giving Slothrop the eye.
Naturally, an octopus (aka Grigori) grabs the maiden (aka Katje) and tries
to make off with her.  Ever ready for action, our hero rushes to the
octopus and clobbers him (it?) with a bottle.  The clobbering seems to have
no effect, however.  Luckily (a little too luckily), Bloat has a handy crab
that Slothrop uses to lure Grigori away with.  Everyone goes back to lunch
and Katje joins them.  But, say, where'd old Teddy get that crab from?
A-and how's come the girls seem to think the whole thing was staged.
Particularly Ghislaine, who warns Slothrop to be careful...and who seems to
disappear after her warning...

2.2

Dr. Porkyevich picks up Grigori and considers his own exile.  Back at the
Casino, Slothrop connects with Katje and, through a diversion to the tune
of THE BALLAD OF TANTIVY MUCKER-MAFFICK, she tells him to meet her in her
room at midnight ("her hour").  Slothrop talks to Tantivy about his
paranoia, and it seems that old Mucker-Maffick is getting a little worried
himself these days.  He's seen coded messages in Bloat's kit and he's
getting worried that maybe he's under observation too.  Slothrop meets
Katje at the appointed time.  She's dressed in white with ostrich feathers,
but not for long.  She and Slothrop sleep together, and (every reader is on
the edge of his/her seat waiting for) no rocket explosion.  Nonetheless,
Slothrop's snore is so loud that one might think there's been a rocket
strike, it shakes the windows, &c.  Slothrop's snore is, of course,
discussed in terms of the rocket (197).  He and Katje get into a bit of a
pillow fight, ending up covered in feathers.  She pulls out the red table
cloth to do her Disappearing Lieutenant Trick.  Slothrop's trapped under
the table cloth and he and Katje make love once again.  This time, Slothrop
tries not to snore as falls back into sleep (for my money, proof positive
that this second session here is a little more than Slothrop's just getting
his groove thing on, as they say on the radio nowadays).  Anyway, next
morning, Slothrop hears his clothes being stolen by an intruder.  He gives
chase, but is eventually run up a tree.  Falling back to the ground, Bloat
and a general consider Slothrop's situation while the girls with them claim
not to see Slothrop at all (a little bit of the old invisibility through
the absence of identity ala Ellison's Invisible Man).  We learn that Bloat
earns his name from a well-proportioned rear end: hye loans a uniform to
Slothrop that happens to be too tight in the belly and too large in the
rear.  A-and, say, where's Tantivy, who seems to have packed up (or, to
have been packed up) and left in the middle of the night.  Beats me, says
Bloat.  Yeah sure, Jackson, something's going on here that's not quite on
the level.  Slothrop begins to wander around, he runs into a gaming room
(202) that seems to reveal to him the natures of the various power
structures that make up the invisible order.  Slothrop whispers his
oft-quoted spell "Fuck you" against those forces invisible and high-tails
it out of there.  After hours of wandering, nowhere else to go, he ends up
at the only place that he has left to go: Katje's.

Keith W