Sloth-rop (was Re: Holocaust as metaphor?

[jbor]

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

> Yes, except for that third person *he*- "No.How can he believe that..." Is
> that *he* Slothrop? Or, "the author," describing himself in the third
> person? In which case, who are *They,* some collection of mutually
> co-dependent sub-routines framed by, or conspiring against *he?* Maybe their
> mutual co-dependency *is* the conspiracy, and *he* just a figament of that
> covert action, a higher level enabler.

Is it the author/narrator standing apart from his character and trying to
second guess his motives? Has Slothrop begun to take on a "life" of his own
apart from his "creator" already here? Is it the narrator expressing and
emphasising amazement at Slothrop's actions ... "*How can* he believe
that?", etc? I.e. rhetorical questions?

Cf. p 471 -- the "last instant their eyes were in touch is already behind
them" at the top of the page -- and then in the second paragraph the vision
of Bianca's face as Slothrop leaves her, the one which "breaks his seeing
heart", must be an after-image rather than something he saw, must be what he
imagines her face to've looked like, the memory of her which haunts him (all
the more so because he never saw it, never "looked back*). Then this segues
right into "how many Last Times up in the rearview mirror", which, if I read
it right (is Becket a town in Massachussetts?), is Slothrop's final
departure from Mingeborough U.S.A. -- home -- and the things he missed
seeing then ... sounding a lot like Gottfried's stream of consciousness
reverie as he is launched in that 00000. Has Slothrop been launched at
Europe? Is Bianca an analogue for "home" for Slothrop? for hope?

And then the line about the "graceless expectations of old men who watched
... *you* lindy-hop into the pit by millions, as many millions as necessary"
at the top of 472. I don't take it as a reference to all the young men going
off to war & wars but to a sort of cultural suicide, mindless sacrifice,
mindless pleasures ... the Jazz Age, Fitzgerald &c? ... Dunno.

And: "Of course Slothrop lost her, and kept losing her - it was an American
requirement ... "

> Or, *he* could be just another level, a particular platform, or scale. It
> gets back to the question of P.O.V. again, but the simple notions of 1st,
> 2nd, 3rd person points of view are not sufficient to describe the vision
> here. Different *scales* seem required for this text- Slothrop chugging up
> and down those ladders... and not only inter-scalar, but cross temporal as
> well- It's _The Art of Fiction_  in an accelerated frame, i.e., a strong
> gravitational field. One level's form is another level's content, as the
> text jumps, rather abruptly, from one scale to the next.

Yes, all the shifts from specific to general suggest some type of allegory
to me too:

> *Sundial* is filled with latency, but coming from "across the wind" reminds
> me of Native American descriptions of the first europeans to land on their
> shores. Sundial may be a self-portrayal of colonial *will* (eventually to
> father both Archer and Theale) appropriately grandiose for the comic book
> sensitive, and helping prepare his reflexes for his ex-patriation and
> ?pre-ordained? re-unification with european culture.

It's certainly Slothrop who found the comic book there by the "Berkshire
hopper" I think. "Sundial"? the indigenous Nth Americans didn't use sundials
did they? Is it -- this comic super-being -- just an exemplar of faith in a
transcendent force, a cosmic order which is beyond human understanding,
another variation on the Christian lie (a *secular* religion constructed
around "Truth, Justice and the American Way")?

> You won't. It's not even an interpretation, but closer to the way:
>
>     "Sure he'll stay for awhile, but eventually he'll go, and for this he is
> to be counted, after all, among the Zone's lost."
>
> made me feel- as if he were somehow making a choice that would seal his
> fate. Hence, my querie- was it all predestined? (or could Bianca have saved
> Slothrop from himself? or they from eachother?)

Is that Bianca's recognition that "[s]ure he'll stay for a while, but
eventually he'll go ... " New paragraph, *her* arms shift, "apprehensive" --
so, her pov?

Does Slothrop even know why he leaves her? After that revelation he has that
"she *exists*, love, invisibility" -- that's "some discovery" indeed! -- why
does he suddenly up and leave? Is he just another lindy-hopping fool headed
for the precipice?

... But I don't get the difference between a "boxtop and its image" bit. A
boxtop isn't the real McCoy either, is it? What's that about? And who's
taunting him(?) there: "Why bring her back? Why try? ... "

best