The epigraphs in *GR*

[Dave Monroe]

.. anybody have a source at hand for that von Braun quote?  Seems to me there
might actually be one, but, if I ever had one, I sure don't have it now.  But
seems to me that jbor and myself might actually be in some agreement, at least
in re: his statement below.  But that epigraph, authentic von Braun or not
(anyone have a source for the fourth epigraph, by the way?  No, seriously ...),
does rather set one up for reading GR indeed beneath that trajectory from the
V-2 to both the Apollo program and the ICBM race ...

... that opening sequence, by the way, a big "1," followed by (of COURSE)
"Beyond the Zero" ...

... but that epigraph, which, in retrospect, at least, reads like somthing outta
Fritjof Capra (no end of comparable figures at the time, no doubt), and then,
Wernher von Braun, ex-Nazi rocket scientist, recent NASA rocket scientist, still
no doubt associated with Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove (and note the Bland
Corporation in both GR and DS,OHILTSWALTB), with both the V-2 and the ICBM, the
Holocaust and nuclear holocaust.  "Denial," "feigned innocence," not to mention
just plain irony ... the themes touched upon, however--"transformation,"
"science," "death," "spiritual existence" therafter (those ghosts in GR, any
decent lit'rachure on them around?), "extinction," "continuity"--are, indeed,
themes more than touched upon in the novel, and yet, the ... irony, again?
equivocation? contamination, even? introduced by that attribution, well, that
also sets one up for reading--for readings of--the novel, signalling that one
might do well to be alert to, be wary of, irony, equivocation, contamination,
even, not to mention the historic, political, possibly even jus' plain sinister
underbelly of, say, metaphysics, rhetoric ... and note those possible
oppositions, nature/science, extinction/transformation, taught/belief,
existence/death ...


jbor wrote:

> The four epigrams all seem to share a certain sense of ... denial, shall we
> say? Feigned innocence? The opening one from von Braun which, as far as I'm
> aware, hasn't been sourced (but may be from one of those Disney pieces
> possibly; I don't agree that Pynchon has invented it), seems like his
> response to an elided question along the lines of ...
>
> "So, Wernher, how do you feel about all the death and such that your V-2 and
> ABMA programs caused, not to mention that which it rode on the back of,
> y'know, the Holocaust'n'all?"
>
> Self-justification, in other words.