GRGR (20) Part 3, Episode 12: Summary, Questions, Comments

[Michael Perez]

SUMMARY:
   Slothrop and Margherita ride out a thunderstorm in the ruins
of what has become part of the Russian sector.  They
conveniently find some food and wine and “without
paraphernalia or talk, they fuck each other to sleep” [434.2-3]. 
After midnight, when the rain has let up, Slothrop, feeling
unparanoiac, spends an hour trying to find Säure Bummer in
order to give him the hashish, but instead finds a wicker suit
and a chess piece (made of you-know-what) from Der Springer
with a note that contains an address.  Slothrop gets swallowed
through the Jacobistrasse’s nested Hinterhöfe and finds a cozy
little refuge complete with a Bösendorfer Imperial concert
grand piano.  Slothrop and Säure get reacquainted over a bowl
and Slothrop manages to attract Trudi, who has given up trying
to get Schroeder, er, I mean Gustav, to go to bed.  She gives the
stoned Slothrop, who “does not feel obliged to have a hardon”
[439.22-3], a little nasal sex and they fall asleep.
   Slothrop awakes around noon (“the evil hour”), in no hurry
to return to “the White Woman,” and a musical debate resumes
between Säure and Gustav, which later manifests itself into a
debate about the taste of the marijuana they are smoking.  They
get busted by the Berlin police, accompanied by American
MPs.  Slothrop escapes, but the incident serves to reestablish
his paranoia.  Nothing compares to the greeting he gets from
Margherita.  Their S/M relationship regains its briefly forgotten
fury.  Slothrop’s main fear at this point is that “Whatever it is
with her, he’s catching it.” [446.10]
   The episode ends describing Slothrop’s dream, which for him
is in the form of a three part poem with woodcuts, of a woman
who attends a dog show, which also doubles as a doggy stud
service.  Somehow the woman gets a little service from one of
the poochies and goes on to find other species by which she
can be serviced.  She discovers she is pregnant and her
husband, in an unclear reciprocal arrangement, agrees to take
her out on an undisclosed American river when she is ready to
deliver.  Next, she is at the bottom of the river, being rescued
by Squalidozzi (as Neptune).  Out of her womb empties a
whole managerie, and she dies.  Slothrop goes fishing in the
Spree, still haunted by the dream.

QUESTIONS:
1.  Why are Slothrop and Greta still together?  What began as a
“chance” meeting after his run in with Tchitcherine, has turned
into a hellish relationship with a psychotic Lisaura, who has
morphed into Dame Holda, the white woman.  Is she Graves’
“White Goddess,” the archetypical mythical heroine?
2.  Are we supposed to think that Slothrop will be affected in
some way by what the reader can presume at this point to
believe is a white knight made of Imipolex G?
3.  Why does Gustav refer to Anton von Webern as “the Last
European” [440.38]?
4.  Is Slothrop’s dream at the end another White Goddess myth
played out?  Is this supposed to strike the reader as an opera
plot?
5.  What is Squalidozzi doing here?

COMMENTS:
  This episode is overloaded with references.  The musical ones
are the most evident and, perhaps, the most misleading.  The
mythical ones are just as confusing and some of those are
musical, too.  It seems that we should not be too worried that
whatever roles that the characters have assumed will stick for
very long.  We have what seem like random lists of things,
random arguments, and random dreams.  Among the rubble is
emptiness.  The tension in this episode is the between the
limits of maximum freedom and fleeting nature of boundaries,
and how the reality or the illusions of each can be destroyed or
become as if etched in stone.

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