GRGR(17) Hauptstufe (380.18)

[rj]

Picking up (perhaps) on something jp made oblique reference to a day or
so ago:

On p. 380, when Slothrop bites the bullet and launches himself across
that autobahn into the public sphere as Raketemensch for the first time
it is the exact halfway point of the book (an achievement worthy of
celebration and commendation all round in itself I think). I see the
symbolism of this incident, and the battle cry in particular, as
something more than coincidental however. If the novel traces the
rocket's trajectory (from the "screaming across the sky" to the last
delta-t above the theatre in which the reader sits, oblivious, at
novel's close) then are we not too, as participants in the text, at the
Brenschluss point, the very apogee of the parabolic arc of (the act) of
reading the novel when Slothrop announces "Hauptstafe" here? At this
point we too have reached the "main stage" -- it's all downhill from
this point (literally and figuratively and reflexively too I think) --
there's a sense of inevitability about things right about now, an
ominous foreboding of what is to come, no turning back, the
(meta-)projectile is on its own, with only gravity (and the gods?) at
the helm; and there's a sudden sense of the significance of what has
come before, a clarity, of there being a path there (both of plot *and*
history) which cannot be retraced. 

In a sense is not Slothrop (qua Raketemensch) like a human V2 launched
across the reader's ken, particularly the U.S. reader's ken. Slothrop in
the text symbolises America, in its secular, civilian, sceptical guise.
In fact, he embodies the stereotypical "ugly American" tourist in many
respects, the ignorant innocent abroad -- selfish and self-centred,
insensitive, superficial, ostentatious, xenophobic, parochial and
paternalistic, chauvinistic (likeable for all that in a schlepping,
scuffling sort of way as well) -- blundering onto the world stage,
wreaking havoc and leaving a trail of devastation in his wake. His
cheesy mock-heroics -- Rocketman Conquers the Perilous Two-Lane
Autobahn! -- and the enormous distance of this perception from what has
actually been going on with his life involvements and in the War
exemplify the distorted vision of American intervention in European
affairs, particularly in terms of the cinematic and historical
revisionism and stereotyping, which has prevailed since WWII (and
before).

As Slothrop learns -- and if not actually capable of taking charge of
his own destiny at least he is making some forward progress here -- his
awareness of personal responsibility and complicity heightens our own
sense of the (often) unacknowledged legacy of U.S. foreign policy (as
elsewhere in *GR* the heritage and ramifications of colonial imperialism
and Western "civilisation" are highlighted) in the era.

Playing around with ideas here, I guess, but that Rocket-man war cry
does seem to be both cusp and catharsis: for Slothrop personally, for
the novel, and, for the reader as well.

best