GRGR24 That little package

[jbor]

Jeremy
>>Does anyone else think that the little package Slothrop picks up on p.
>>531 could contain the S-Geraet? We know the Springer is interested in
>>it, and I was wondering because of the last words on 531: "and the smell
>>of... *of*..."

Jody
> I think that the package is a figure for the manuscript of GR. Springer is
> just the one to leap out of the two dimensional space of the text and hawk
> it around to publishers. (snip)


I really like both of these ideas, even though the S-Gerat is, if I
understand correctly, the Imipolex shroud which was moulded to fit
Gottfried's lace-garbed torso to stop his flesh from burning up as the 00000
was launched across the Channel, and thus neither package-sized enough nor
readily available to Slothrop at this moment in the narrative. Further,
Slothrop's descent into the bowels of the Anubis is happening in 1945-6, and
the novel which recounts his exploits doesn't even exist yet. Even so, both
theories serve as effective metaphors for what is happening to the text of
*GR* from now, or from pretty soon after this episode. I think that, partly
at least, Slothrop is here reclaiming his own life, his mystery, if you like
(cf. Hamlet): the contents of that package remain indeterminate, and from
this point on the fragmentation of the narrative surrounding (and
entrapping) him gathers momentum, exploding into virtual unintelligibility
in places as we move into the final section of the novel.

Technically speaking, I think that some of the snippets and sequences which
fill out the plot/s from now on in were probably written at an earlier phase
of the novel's production and that Pynchon was ultimately unwilling to
sacrifice these. In fact, it is quite probable that there are several
separate narratives here which have been spliced together, as with the
technique of cross-cutting, and the incorporation of sub-plots, within film.
Originally, perhaps, the author had a vision of how the novel would wind
down, how all the loose ends would be tied together. But I think that in the
fourth section of the novel Pynchon is more concerned to relinquish *his*
control over the text and reader: that there is also a recognition here that
within the traditional novel of the Aristotleian beginning-middle-end
variety is a species of hegemony wholly commensurate with the fascism which
Pointsman or Blicero or traditional historical recounts aspire to. A closed
narrative ultimately binds the reader, controls her or his interpretation:
in fact, closed narratives/environments are what Pointy and Bleachy are
trying to impose. Pynchon resists this impulse to godhead. Thus, none of the
plot strands actually "end" in anything like a conclusive way: Slothrop
escapes the fictional artefact altogether; and the significance of
Tchitcherine and Enzian's final near-encounter, Katje's and Pirate's
experiences within the Counterforce, even Blicero and Gottfried's last
moments together, all are clouded in magic, mystery, contingency. Perhaps he
just got lazy, understandably tired of this mammoth and portentous
undertaking, impatient to publish: but I doubt this. I think the unfinished
quality of the final section of the novel is deliberate.

One analogy for this type of open-ended art-form can be made with
Michelangelesque non-finito, in sculptures such as the four slaves
originally destined for the Tomb of Pope Julius II. Bound not only by their
chains, their writhing torsos are trapped within the marble from which they
have been carved, the very medium in which the sculptor was working. It was
not necessary for Michelangelo to complete their forms: the concetto existed
within the marble ("a soul in ev'ry stone", so to speak).  As with Pynchon
and *GR*, it doesn't matter whether Michelangelo left the statues unfinished
because he was satisfied with them as is, or because he no longer planned to
use them. In either case the artist's vision was complete, though not
completed; it is in this way that the viewer/reader is re-enfranchised in
the postmodern text.

http://gallery.euroweb.hu/html/m/michelan/1sculptu/giulio_2/slave3.html
http://gallery.euroweb.hu/html/m/michelan/1sculptu/giulio_2/index.html
http://www.michelangelo.com/buon/bio-index2.html

best