Apocalypse: "Not for Sale in Canada"

[Dave Monroe]

... just find it interesting that there a several possibilities in re: that
"screaming," a nigh unto quantum physical superposition of states none of
which seem definit(iv)ely actualized by the text.  V-2, siren (and note the
echoes thereof at the novel's end, as the novel ends ...), but also perhaps
that train whistle, maybe even human (literally, figuratively,
individually, collectively) screaming ... the V-2 angle IS strongly
suggested by that "Wernher von Braun" just prior, that London Blitz
setting, that message after, but ... but, in between those seeming (though,
again, not necessarily)detrmining boundary conditions, well ... and what
faacinates me is that there might well be an awful lot of that going on in
the novel.  A la those "several layers" or whatever, that archaeology, that
tectonics, that aerodynamics even (laminar flow, turbulence), that allows
one to read the first couple of pages as an evacuation from the V-2, as an
evacuation to the death camps, and not necessarily in a mutually exclusive,
either/or, Thomas-Kuhn-necker-cube kind of way, but, rather, in that
mutually implicated, both/and (and then some ...) dream logically way ...
someone suggested reading GR as an alternate history of sorts (a reading
not unsupported by Pynchon's own endorsement of philosophically speculative
postwar SF as a "flowering of talent" rivalling the Beats and well ahead of
"mainstream" fiction)--there certainly seems to be something of teh
parallel world sort going on at times ... at any rate, freedom, fun,
interpreatation, indeed--thanks!

Mark Wright AIA wrote:

> Howdy
>
> --- jbor <jbor at bigpond.com> wrote:
>
> > There are "naturalistic" elements, however, surely? even down to that
> > very
> > precise "6:43:16 BDST" ref
> > > even then, well, IS it ever really nailed down that that's a
> > > V-2 there?
> >
> > It's the rocket with the message from Katje, isn't it?
>
> Fearing to tread, but...
>
> There are lots of really tasty naturalistic bits... a splendid example
> being the contrail of the rocket that Pirate observes from the roof
> after he wakes up from the dream.  These naturalistic bits are
> assembled into a freaky and proudly unnaturalistic whole. I had an
> argument once with someone who thought that that contrail shredding
> back and forth in the wind was supposed to be symbolic of something,
> but I think not.  That is what happens to a real missile contrail is
> all.  It is this rocket that bears Katjes message, falling short of
> London proper and failing to explode, just pulverizing itself as it
> hits the ground. Whomp. All that kinetic energy converted to heat in a
> trice, causing the graphite cylinder to get toasty and burn the fingers
> of the ranking officer who hollers Oh Fuck to the cheers and laughter
> of the lower pay-grades.  I just love it. I don't think this actual
> rocket can figure at all as an element in Pirates Dream.
>
> The screaming coming across the sky is undoubtedly, in the first
> instance, air-raid sirens.  It is a dream, and so the screaming can be
> all sorts of other things simultaneously, of course.  It's fun to
> speculate what such a dream element might mean to the dreaming
> character, but recall Freud's reassurance that only the dreamer can
> have enough of the right data to interpret a dream. An external
> interpreter will never get it right. But this is a fictional character
> who, therefore, isn't dreaming and can't do the interpreting, and so we
> are free to have fun interpreting ourselves, aren't we?
>
> Or some such truck,
> Mark
>
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