GRGR(17) Hauptstufe (380.18)

[Terrance F. Flaherty]

Not a Rocket scientist myself but I don't think a rocket
scientist's expertise is what is needed here. I think rj's
post is correct and I think your question here about the
apogee is correct too.  Speaking of echoes, this chapter
sends us back to GR.236-244. Worth a look.  

At the end of the novel 758-759 Ascent & Decent both
readings (rj's and your objections to it) seem to be
confirmed. 

But, your objection is an important one I think, since
Patterns, even the the Rocket's path, are a problem for the
reader. This takes off into all sorts of things, but
Patterns have their limits and at the same time  are
useful--"you will want cause and effect" and so on--to the
reader and I think rj's point here so important that we
might say the Patterns are necessary but not sufficient. 

Take for example the Zone-Herero. Remember, the Zone-Herero
are mystically orientated. the chapters currently under
discussion are also mystically orientated and remember that
the Zone-Herero's believe that 

"There may be no gods, but there is a Pattern: names by
themselves may have no magic, but the Act of naming, the
physical utterance, obeys the Pattern. Nordhausen means
dwelling in the north." 

Compare this with the serendipitious/sychronistic naming of
Slothrop in the current chapters. Can't get the archives to
work, but in there are some comments I posted a while back
on naming, roots and Hillman. Names can create patterns of
association, of meaning. Enzian's naming, association,  of
Blicero--whiteman--with all the whiteness, of the cathedrals
of death dealing europe, the white visitation and the
bleaching terror we see in the current chapters and so on,
which is again repeated as Pattern and the subversion of
Pattern in that same passage at the end of the
novel--"Brenschluss it can't be this
soon...ultrawhite...bleaching...Blicker, Bleicherode,
Bleacher, Blicero..."

White death, chemistry, pattern, control which I think needs
to be compared to the Herero rocket and rocket mandala, its
symbolism, cosmogony, the opposites paradoxically of mythic
association and mechanistic patterns. This all adds up to a
rambling on my part I know, but that passing over preterit
ion and preserving of life is all so very mysterious to us
catholics. 



Myth in GR and relation of myth to deity in GR function in
many ways, but one important way in which it functions is
the concurrent use of the denial of the viability of myth
which leads to the inanimate or pornographic conspiracy
against the cycle of life and death, return and so on. And
the  denial of death, the denial of life and the denial of
love, lead to violence. Note that soon Saure will make a
statement on LOVE. Also, myth is only denied, but the sense
of deity in GR is more "ABSENTEE" than denied, more absentee
(Pynchon's ironic epithet for the War) say, then the War.
Patterns are how a sense of order in a godless grand scheme
of things is expressed. The denial of myth is the
concomitant of the stress placed on abstraction (say, the
Yaw formula--see 236-234 ref., not mine) and on mechanical
explanations for human existence, thoughts, actions and
passions. These current chapters, specifically, Enzian's
Destiny talk with Slothrop send me back to "V. in love"
where I note that  both chapters are Serius chapters, but
the dog star here with Hermes is quite different. Note also
the rain and sun symbolism is different. I think the
violence that results, Melaine impaled in V. (art's
violence) and the violence to the Herero and their myths are
results of a dissociation of thought, action, passion from
myth, and the mock mythic style, the patterns that replace
it, deny it and lead to destruction and violence. 

Henry Musikar wrote:
> 
> Brenschluss is when the engines stop (outta fuel or otherwise). Are there
> any rocket scientists out there who can tell me if brenschluss  would be the
> halfway point, the apogee, or does the rocket continue to rise; wouldn't
> that depend on the particular rocket? Was the V2 an even burn throughout its
> pre-brenschluss flight? A bullet's flight is parabolic, but almost all of
> it's burn is in the big bang....
>