GRGR(18): Finding Lisaura

[Seb Thirlway]

From: David Morris <fqmorris at yahoo.com>


>> Let's try and figure out who would have an interest
>> in Slothrop and Greta
>> getting together...
>
>Pynchon did, obviously.
>
>Greta's presence does seem too coincidental,
>especially given Slothrop's "Max" pass.  And even more
>so considering the spot where they first "couple."
>
>----------
>(395.28)
>
>[Greta:] "Random." [...] "Another fairy-tale word.
>[..] They want you right here, right now."
>
>[Slothrop:] "Want me here?  What for?"
>
>[Greta:] "For me."


Yes, I completely neglected this exchange in my other post
("Slothrop meeting Greta is nothing but co-incidence").  I still
think it is nothing but co-incidence, or perhaps that we're
invited to think of it as nothing but co-incidence - in a way
that's different from other events and meetings in GR.  We get a
lot of insight into Slothrop's paranoia, and it seems to be at
least partially jusitifed by what we hear from other characters
in GR, and in TRP's own voice.  Greta is paranoid (and I didn't
think of this when I wrote the other post), and does think that
Slothrop was meant, but we never get this kind of development of
her paranoia, she carries on being a "black box" right to the
end.
It's all too easy to dismiss Greta as simply bonkers because the
view of her is mostly from the outside.  So maybe Greta has
accessed some information that completely justifies her paranoia,
that would convince me that, yep, the meeting between her and
Slothrop was set up, maybe she has a well-developed They-system:
but we don't hear about it.  She remains closed up in herself.
(more "European" than Slothrop - that theme of the European
darkness that Slothrop doesn't quite know how to handle).  Greta
has the same flavour as von Goll when Slothrop meets him at
Swinemunde (apogee) and in his exchange with Narrisch on the
boat - there obviously are all kinds of shenanigans going on, but
we're not told what they are.
So I think asking whether the meeting was set up is different
from asking whether anything that happens to Slothrop previously
was set up - the latter question is one that's constantly shoved
in the reader's face: how much Slothrop is simply inventing
things, how well this corresponds to "reality", how necessary it
might be for him to invent these things is a well-developed theme
in GR.  In contrast, Greta's obsessions are treated as, well just
obsessions, a word that might be written down on a psychological
report, a clinical judgment that carries dismissal and a shrug of
the shoulders with it.  Slothrop doesn't murder children, or have
dark unexplained intentions to possibly murder his own daughter.
Slothrop is pretty harmless and very entertaining; Greta is mad
bad and dangerous to know.
Maybe if we had time to get to know Greta it would be different.
I'm imagining a different story focused on Greta's wanderings
about the Zone rather than Slothrop's, which might make her
easier to identify with.  That's not the story we get - her story
(in TRP's voice, but perhaps meaning "as told to Slothrop") is
briefly given, and carries a flavour of neurosis and hypochondria
(so perhaps the voice means "as told to and interpreted by
Slothrop").  I couldn't stand Greta the first few times I read
GR, thought that half an hour in her company and I'd be trying to
throttle her (though she'd probably enjoy this - what the hell
can you do with someone that perverse?).  I don't think that
reaction is far off the mark - i.e. the reaction TRP intends,
though there is more to Greta than that, more in the text as well
as "possibly more if her story was told at length".  Maybe
Slothrop could be that annoying on first meeting, so that all
_his_ obsessions would seem like nothing more than raving - but
Slothrop isn't presented in this way: this far on, I'm rooting
for Slothrop.
So was the meeting set up?  Don't know - but it's a different
kind of "don't know": it's "don't know, and there's little point
in speculating" rather than "don't know, but we're going to have
some fun getting thoroughly paranoid about it".  Because Greta's
paranoia is no fun.




seb