GRGR23 (1) – The Bicycle Rider in the Sky

[Seb Thirlway]

“.. the Bicycle Rider in the Sky, the black and fatal Edwardian
silhouette on the luminous breast of sky, of today’s Rocket Noon,
two circular explosions inside the rush hour, in the death-scene
of the sky’s light.  How the rider twirls up there, terminal and
serene.  In the Tarot he is known as the Fool, but around the
Zone here they call him Slick.” (501)

“Slothrop, as noted, at least as early as the Anubis era, has
begun to thin, to scatter”
509.1

“
Slothrop’s Rider, his two explosions up there, his celestial
cyclist –
No, but even THAT only flickers briefly across a bit of
Slothropian lobe-terrain, and melts into its surface, vanishing.”
509

What is Slothrop doing here at Peenemunde?  Perhaps a sign from
the sky will tell him – since it’s a family trait to see Things
in the Sky.  Slothrop’s been looking at the sky more than usual
recently – when he meets der Springer, the sky suddenly begins to
look like a giant chessboard.

“Case
minutely describes the significance of the design of the
[Tarot] Fool’s clothing – a system of spoked wheels”  (Gareth
Knight “Introduction to Qabalistic Symbolism”)

Maybe TRP was familiar with that particular deck (the Waite,
which I’ve never seen).  Why a bicycle rider?  The first mention
of the Rider segues from Greta’s imaginings – a windmill on a
dyke in Holland.  No Dutch dyke is complete without a cyclist
(resist the temptation to make a crack about fish needing
bicycles).

Who put the Rider up there?  Not Slothrop – TRP did.  He claims
that the Rider is there every Rocket noon – some people can see
him (“they call him Slick”), but Slothrop just ignores him: “so
here passes for him one more negligence
and likewise groweth his
Preterition sure.” (509).  I’m not sure I believe a word of it.
This is why GR gets more difficult after this point – the
suspicion grows that TRP is just making it up.  TRP was inside
Slothrop’s mind up to here, author and character in unison – but
now here’s the author setting up a nice Significance to Slothrop’
s actions, one of those occult “I-see-it-now” explanations that
we’ve enjoyed so much; and Slothrop just walks away, can’t be
bothered.  Maybe TRP was making it up all along


Is it possible for Slothrop to do anything else?  probably not
with the Fool.  I can’t imagine Slothrop paying attention,
looking up, “a-ha, the Fool: now I understand”.
The Fool is numbered Zero (Slothrop reaches his Zero – where’s
that from?  A Pokler episode I think – find your own personal
zero point – Mondaugen if I remember right).  Zero = bicycle
wheel.
The Fool is assigned to the letter Aleph, the first letter in the
Hebrew alphabet.  It’s the first path on the Tree, linking Kether
(the Crown) to Chokmah (Wisdom).  So it’s not surprising that
Slothrop doesn’t take in this Bicycle Rider (the two wheels are
Kether and Chokmah, the bicycle is the 11th Path, and someone is
somehow riding the bicycle
).  There’s no a-hah now-I-see-it with
the Fool: if seeing the Rider (just realised – the pack is also
known as the Rider-Waite) results in anything, it’s Slothrop’s
adventures to come, playing the fool in a strange, half
self-conscious way, as if he’s conscious of what he’s doing but
chooses to do nothing about it.  (wandering about northern
Germany in a pig suit, for instance – which does bring him a
friendly sow who leads him to Pokler).

Slothrop isn’t really thinking anything throughout this episode.
He just is.  Unlike Narrisch, who can’t even concentrate on
making his Last Stand without explaining it all to himself in
terms of John Dillinger,  can’t revel in it without putting it in
engineering terms (Narrisch of many subscripts) – stimulant talk.
Slothrop just can’t be bothered with all this anymore.



seb