GR 'Streets'

[David Morris]

 jbor <jbor at bigpond.com> wrote:
>  
> > 2.  The headline doesn't say "atomic bomb."
> 
> No. It just said "Bomb". My mistake.

No, it says "MB DRO ROSHI," and that's the whole point.  Why not have Slothrop
find the whole headline and then reflect directly on what he's looking at? 
It's because he doesn't understand it (even though we do).  Instead he starts
to dream...

> Or are you saying that Slothrop doesn't realize that it's a bomb? It's a
front page headline and photo. There's a war on. Slothrop learnt German he was
so obsessed with bombs, I'd be surprised if he didn't catch on real quick. But
I guess it's a possibility.

Actually, the War in Europe is over, and Slothrop has no explicit knowledge of
the war's status in the Pacific.  
  
> > 3.  WE understand, without it ever being spelled out, what the headline
says and what the picture is of, but Slothrop sees every thing in the world
other than what it is.
> 
> No, he only makes connections to a "genital onset", which is an inversion (if
not a perversion) of the "rainbow cock" he sees on p. 626, to the
"hey-lookit-me smugness" of the Cross, and to "a Tree."

But to attribute such cuteness belies your suggestion that he is devastated by
the image and headline.
 
> Good grief. It seems that the American atrocity in bombing Hiroshima, which
is the primary semantic and historical referent in this section of the novel,
is as big a taboo as noting that the text doesn't endorse a Christian
worldview. 

This statement is trash.  I simply disagree with your interpretation.  I
suggest that at this point in the text Slothrop isn't capable of processing the
image and fragmentary headline in any "normal" way.  But you want to make him
so.

>Porter says it's condemning US involvement in Vietnam and that dropping the
A-bomb on Hiroshima was a part of the 20th C.'s "great moral crusade". [snip of
your snit w/ Keith and Paul] And you're saying Slothrop identifies the headline
and mushroom cloud with images of "LIFE".

Yes.  That's what I'm saying because it's right there in the text.  Your
interpretation of why he starts off on these image trails makes no sense with
your suggesting he's devastated IMHO.

David Morris


__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Search - Faster. Easier. Bingo
http://search.yahoo.com