GRGR(17) Hauptstufe (380.18)

[Terrance F. Flaherty]

Paul Mackin wrote:
> 
> On Tue, 11 Jan 2000, Mark Wright AIA wrote:
> 
> > Howdy
> >
> > I'm no rocket scientist (as I've demonstrated to all on several
> > occasions) but, I nevertheless venture, brennschluss would not be at
> > apogee.
> 
> Right on, Mark. Here's an alternative  way to look at it. Think of the
> rocket's trajectory as that of a bullet fired upward (not necessarily
> directly) into the air. The equivalent of brennschluss occurs less than a
> second after firing. It's like as if launch crew had neglected to put more
> than a thimbleful or so of propellant into the tank (they were off
> letting Katje have her way with them). Yet the bullet continues in
> its inertial path (objects in motion and all that) upward--until
> gravitational force is sufficient to start it downward--all the time
> tracing its by now proverbial shape in the sky.
> 
>                 P.


All true, right on, but, and  I don't want to speak for rj
here but, I think his reading is ALSO correct. If we
consider a few of the possibilities, perhaps we can see how
we agree or disagree. We might see how a rocket scientist is
not an authority on
these matters and that Pynchon makes sure of it. We might
find that several seemingly incompatible notions may coexist
without refutation (did I steal that from Dostoevsky? yes I
think I did) We might consider  Point images,
Brensclhuss, and the Zero. Each serves a number of symbolic
functions in GR, among them that of the end of motion or the
threshold of change and means of Control. For example, the
point image is
associated with the Rocket and if the Rocket strikes, as
Pirate early on wonders, "if it should hit EXACTLY--ahh,
no--for a split second you'd have to feel the very Point,
with the terrible (there's that terrible again) mass above,
strike the top of the skull...." GR.7 However, the action of
GR stops at the penultimate frame (kool, those little box
frames that divide the chapters, filmy), at the last
delta-t: "And it is just here, just at this dark and silent
frame, that the Pointed tip of the Rocket" Gr.760,
directional and determined, past the Brenschluss point,
hangs in a paradox of time, forever about to strike. The
Brenschluss point, the technical, rocket scientist's burnout
point, is the moment of change when guidance of one type is
ended and another takes over. The moment that the mechanical
guidance system causes Brenschluss inevitably determines
where the "internal" system of the rocket will cause the
rocket to strike. The Zero is again many things to many
people and serves several functions in GR. The Rocket is
capable of bringing
"events to Absolute Zero," a judgment from which there is
no appeal" (gr.3-4), that forces the early evacuation, the
fall of the 2nd industrial revolution (symbolized by the
crystal palace) and the disruption of life,  human and all
other, and  love. The Zero is also the annihilating
conditioning force that attracts the Zone-Herero to suicide.
It is also one of the binary possibilities that Pointsman
(oh that Pynchon) considers valid, POINTsman "can only
possess the Zero and the one." And of course the Zero also
represents the Point of transition in the ultra paradoxical
phase to a condition of the confusion of opposites. To
confuse us all  with these opposites and these
ultraparadoxical uses of terms and ideas--Zero, Point,
Brenschluss, not to mention theatre and the Rocket(s) seems
to be Pynchon's plan, but I think one view need not cancel
another out and we need not frustrate ourselves with the
ultimate indeterminacy, if in fact that is what we get.
Anyway, I'm getting far from my Point, which would be easier
demonstrated if I could draw it, but we can see that Zero,
Brenschluss, the point image is here at the books center or
Zero point (gr.360), as rj says, at least on one level. And
I think his comments on Slothrop's movements and the
reader's position and I would add the mixed symbolism of
Herero and technical mendala and the Herero rocket, Pig
Bodine and other factors support this, but the complexity is
incredible and mind blowing and difficult to discuss without
bringing in so much of the book--film is one important key,
but take the theatre, another multi-symbol, and we can see
that the "reality" of GR, the theatre, has a world of a
stage that is the weary planet earth; its proscenium is the
parabola (talk about a multi), that shape we have all come
to know so well, "that shape latent in the sky" that
fascinates us all, fascinates and frightens us and most of
the characters in GR, not Geli though, I think. The theatre
is also the theatre of War and of course it is also that
theatre in which we will all be sitting at the end of grgr
and GR, at the instant of the last delta-t. This image, and
the symbolism associated with it, of the Parabola/Theatre is
constructed by the narrator, reader and characters and acts
as a containment structure for the action of the novel. On
one level, it is the achievement, the success of Their
interests. Their interest is in war, power, control,
commerce, electricity, money, work, death transfigured and
so on, and the War and ironically the peace, is controlled
by Them, thereby creating a fracturing anachronism in time,
halting on the point of a paradox, the last delta-t where we
will all be faced with another--the abstraction of the
delta-t, a way to deal with Zeno's paradox of motion,
confronts in that theatre the conscious life of the mind
pushed to choose a last action in a crisis of decision
almost out of time. The angel of death in its silence will
shatter the image of the film and be followed by a screaming
like the one that we hear at the beginning of the book, an
ironic Return, hmmm? 
Ironic, ironic, yes and this is the big one isn't it? The
destruction of the theatre(s), the World, where there is no
deposit, no return, no salvation, no Cycle, because the
rocket demands not deposit, no return by its structure--the
parabola, that shape of no surprise, no second chance, no
return. The ineluctability of Gravity bends tangents beyond
the Zero of Brenschluss to any determined Point.