GRGR (17) - The State of Peoplelessness

[David Morris]

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(363.20)
[Enzian:] "Are your people after it?"
[Rocketman:] "I don't have any people."
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(376.10)
[Saure:]  "What do you want it for?  Will your country use it against 
Russia?"
[Rocketman:] "I don't want it.  What do you mean, 'my country'?"
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Slothrop knows he is alone, has no people.  In this he is much like Enzian 
and the Zone Hereros: dislocation and thus free-agency.  Existential 
freedom.  It is a valuable commodity and also a great weight.

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(363.20)  Later in Berlin, down in the cellar among fever-dreams [...] at 
minimum points on his mental health chart, when the sun is gone so totally 
it might as well be for good, Slothrop's dumb idling heart sez:  The 
Schwartgerat is no Grail, Ace, that's not what the G in Impolex-G stands 
for. [...] But what you've done is put yourself on somebody else's voyage 
[...] playing her, its, game... You know that in some irreducible way it's 
an evil game.  You play because you have nothing better to do, but that 
doesn't make it right.
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But Slothrop does continue to play the game.  He does go on somebody else's 
voyage.  Slothrop IS free, I think, but he hasn't yet learned the great 
value, nor the great responsibility of his being free.

David Morris


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