GR 'Streets'

[David Morris]

--- Terrance <lycidas2 at earthlink.net> wrote: 
>
>jbor:
>> (of course, the news of the A-bomb dropped on Hiroshima has left him
>> totally awestruck and in despair)
> 
>
> "slothrop sits on the curbstone watching it, and the letters, and girl with
steel cock waving hi fellas, as the fog whitens into morning, and figures with
carts, or dogs, or bicycles go by in brown-gray outlines, wheezing, greeting
briefly in fog-flattened voices, passing. He doesn't remember sitting on the
curb for so long staring at the picture. But he did." 
> 
> The fact that he sits on the curb staring at the picture for longer than he
remembers doesn't tell us that he was totally awestruck or in despair.

I agree completely.  I was going to respond to this, but I don't have the text
in front of me.  As I remember it, Slothrop doesn't recognize the mushroom
cloud as such: he envisions it as a large white phallus and pubic bush pointing
down from the sky.  And the fact that the headline is largely missing increases
the possibility that he doesn't understand the "true" import of the photo.  At
this point Slothrop's mind is largely blank, and close to his "Mr. Natural"
state (naked in the fields).

David Morris


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