Apocalypse: "Not for Sale in Canada"

[Dave Monroe]

Naturalistic, realistic, historical, even elements, indeed.  Have posted a few of
my own forays into those historical contexts, references, referents myself here.
Think Mark's note on this is pertinent, in re: that dream logic.  Cf., say, the
"naturalism" of surrealism (esp., most consistently, Dali, Tanning, Magritte,
maybe even Tanguy and Sage, at least in terms of form, space).  That uncanny,
unheimlich, note-quite-homely, effect.  But a "naturalist," "realist,"
"historical" novel, well, that's another thing, though it seems certainly worth
pursuing just what GRs relationship to such works, such elements, might be, what
effects that might have ...

But that "screaming" is in Pirate's dream, no?   Which, however, and, again, is
not to say that it's NOT associated in some way (in several ways, even), with that
message-bearing (and, again, recall that postwar US Hermes Project ...) V-2.  But
it IS interesting that it's never really identified, determined, in any simple
one-to-one fashion, as such.  Again, that superposition of possibilities, bounded
by the name Wernher von Braun and that messenger-rocket, but not quite actualized
within the text (by the reader, perhaps, but ...).  Again, those "several levels,"
opens up all sorts of ways to read all sorts of things in the novel, in parallel,
at the same time, even.  Again, that sort of dream logic here ...

Not so sure I've suggested any such "specific" "condemnations" myself.  But,
again, that "Luddite" essay, "the factory system," the Manhattan Project, the
German rocket program, the death camps, Hiroshima,  specified in the essay, in the
novel, Marvy (who you'll note I'm gettin 'round to), perhaps, via
Operations/Projects Overcast, Backfire, Paperclip, Hermes, a vector of that
"infection" (which, in re: Blicero, Gottfried, is ...?  Or is that "badgering"?),
perhaps, but, well, can't help but notice, Blicero launches (Gottfried (in
Imipolex G) in--that S-Gerat, guidance, cybernetics (and, of course, cybernetics
arises in the context of antiaircraft, missile guidance)) the Rocket, the Rocket @
that "last delta-t" over the Orpheus theater at the end, and ... well, why
Blicero?  For starters ...

Opens with a dream, closes in a theater ... though note "The film has broken, or a
projector bulb has burned out" (Byron burned out at last?  Mortality reasserts
itself?), "The screen is a dim page spread before us, white and silent" ...  Well,
at any rate, think to write GR up, if not necessarily off, as "about" Death, the
inevitability thereof, so, what the heck, car-pay dee-em (which is kinda sorta
what I'm hearing 'round these parts, let me know otherwise if not), is to ignore
just what kind of deaths we're talking about here.  Auschwitz, Hiroshima, Mutually
Assured Destruction, these are not transhistorical, universal, whatever.  "Death"
has history, politics, even.  Question is, how so in GR?

So maybe we do disagree?  Not quite sure, as neither of us seems quite to be
offering a full-on Reading of the novel here.  But as to specific elements, well
... but won't get, haven't gotten, am not anymore "het up" about it than any
other, er, "disagreeant."  S'awright?  S'awright ...

jbor wrote:

> There are "naturalistic" elements, however, surely?

> It's the rocket with the message from Katje, isn't it?
>
> As I understand it you contend that the novel condemns Blicero and those he
> stands for (in your eyes: Nazi scientists, bureaucrats etc who were grabbed
> up by the US, Allied, Soviet defence and space programs), and are using the
> line in paragraph 22 of the 'Luddite' essay as reinforcement of this. I see
> no such specific condemnation of any individual or group of individuals
> either in the novel (except for Major Marvy), or the essay, but rather a far
> deeper and less conclusive or judgemental meditation on the course of human
> history, particularly since the Industrial Revolution/invention of the
> printing press/ Renaissance (re)conception of man as "the measure of all
> things" & associated moments in the (supposed) progress of (supposed)
> civilisation.
>
> So, we disagree. Nothing to get all het up about, is it?