Sloth-rop (was Re: Holocaust as metaphor?

[jbor]

jody asks 

> Was it
> all predestined? 

Well, insofar as "infant Tyrone" had been biomechanically conditioned for
nefarious purposes by Perilous Pop and the Nasty Man, the answer is yes.

But stepping away from that and taking a more allegorical perspective on
Slothrop as the descendant of, say, James' Isabel Archer or Milly Theale
(like Schrödinger's cat you can have it either or both there with Sloth-y:
the hopeful ingenue or cancer-riddled "Liberty" herself: which do you want
it to be?), then the answer is also yes. For is it not the image of Shirley
Temple (both the persona *and* in aura-less infinite reproduction), with
which he has *already* been seduced by his own culture ... and this is even
before he puts one foot aplank that hell-bound and lovin' it decky-dance on
board the Anubis which is the culmination of European culture c. 20th? He's
been set up fer sure, don't give *that* a second thought. Bianca's playing
it for him and no-one else:

   her eyes: they remain as they were, mocking, dark, her own . . .

(Who has *she* been set up by, that's the question ... )

Pilate? ... methinks perhaps all those delusions of grandeur (Rocketman,
Plechauzunga, Ian Scuffing) have finally gotten to the poor sod ...

a tanker and a feeb ... harsh, but apt. But then, what is the alternative?

best



----------
>From: <jp4321 at IDT.NET>
>

> That he tries inspite of his awkwardness and high risk of failure says
> something, similar perhaps to the message I get from the author's attempts
> in the opening scene.
>
>>> Later, he fucks and deserts Bianca.
>>
>> "Fucks and deserts", or "is fucked and deserted by"? Is there a difference?
>> Is it important?
>
> She certainly fucks him, We are stuck in his head, primarily, and can't be
> sure of her motivations. Later he is in a panic, on the slippery deck, as he
> seems to lose her trail. Whether manipulated or not, he seems upset, and we
> are told he has joined the ranks of Pilate, by not staying with her. Was it
> all predestined?



~~~
    "By 1945, the factory system - which, more than
     any piece of machinery, was the real and major
     result of the Industrial Revolution - had been
     extended to include the Manhattan Project, the
     German long-range rocket program and the death
     camps, such as Auschwitz.It has taken no major
     gift of prophecy to see how these three curves
      of development might plausibly converge, and
                before too long. ... "
                                 (T. Pynchon, 1984)
                                                    ~~~