Sloth-rop (was Re: Holocaust as metaphor?

[jporter]

> From: "jbor" <jbor at bigpond.com>
> Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 08:20:51 +1100

> 
> 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 ... )

"...though how much easier just to leave her there, in fetid carbibe and
dead-canary soups of breath and come out and have comfort enough to try only
for a reasonable facsimile-
    'Why bring her back? Why try? It's only the difference between the real
boxtop and the one you draw for Them.' No. How can he believe that? It's
what They want him to believe, but how can he? No difference betwen a boxtop
and its image, all right, their whole economy's based on *that*... but she
must be more than an image, a product, a promise to pay..."

> 
> 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?

"...slouched alone in your own seat, never threatened along any rookwise row
or diagonal all night, you whose interdiction from her mother's water-white
love is absolute, you, alone, saying *sure I know them,* omitted, chuckling,
*count me in,* unable, thinking *probably some hooker*... She favors you,
most of all. You will never get to see her. So somebody has to tell you."

j.