GR P1 S1: "The Evacuation still proceeds..."

[jbor at bigpond.com]

Yes, though there are probably a few things I'd debate, or look into a 
bit more. I don't know that Pirate would necessarily report any 
telepathic insights about the death camps to his superiors at S.O.E. 
It's more a case of him managing the fantasies and phobias of 
emissaries and bureaucrats--doing what he's told--rather than him 
generating intelligence off his own bat. Such is the nature of 
bureaucracy. I'm also not sure that he'd have a 100% clear 
understanding of what he's channeling, because I don't know that the 
victims at Auschwitz, for example, were ever totally sure what their 
fate was going to be until the very last ... and then it was all over. 
Also, I don't suppose that places and situations and events are ever 
all that clearly-defined for telepaths. But in the dream-scenario 
there's a sense of hope mingled with confusion, foreboding and dread 
which really does come close to evoking what those poor souls must have 
been feeling. And, as it's a dream, it might be an episode, or an 
accumulation of episodes, which Pirate has submerged in his own psyche, 
thoughts and visions that have come into his mind previously, perhaps 
even recurringly, that have been very disturbing to him but which he 
has worked hard to bury somewhere deep in his psyche. So, not just the 
one episode, or one victim, but a composite ... and that's perhaps 
where and how the more abstract or philosophical implications for human 
mortality come into it as well. But I don't get an impression of guilt, 
or even of clear knowledge of the fate awaiting the evacuee/victims, at 
all.

I'm not sure how much anyone on the Allied side knew about the death 
camps in mid-1944 anyway so I doubt that it'd be an assignment Pirate'd 
have been given--plus the fact that there'd be no strategic value to be 
gained from it. As I understand it, knowledge about the death camps 
wasn't exactly flooding out anywhere, even at this late stage, 
particularly into the U.K. or the U.S. The few accounts there were had 
been either dismissed or ignored.

I think the remembered "VIP faces" speeding out of the city might have 
been the Elect, whose "Evacuation" and safety are always made into much 
more of a priority than that of the Preterite throng left behind.

I think that Pirate's morning routine, and the Banana Breakfasts he 
prepares (and probably the nights of drunkenness and debauchery as 
well), illustrate the way Pirate manages all of the conscious, waking 
moments when he is off-duty, taking things as they come and just 
focusing on the mundane activites of life and living to keep all these 
other presentiments and insights at bay--his way of telling "Death ...  
to fuck off".

As to Erik's suggestion, and despite the prevalence of shit and so 
forth elsewhere in the text, I don't think the sense of "evacuation" as 
in evacuating one's bowels has any relevance for this scene.

best

On 25/10/2005, at 1:06 PM, jporter wrote:

> Yes, I think so, but more. There is the double meaning for
> "Evacuation", as there must always be, given the guaranteed
> mortality of any one. All roads lead to heaven. And yes, this
> "visitation" or channeling is definitely during Pirate's off-time-
> the agony of the death camps is precisely what They would
> prefer that Pirate use his abilities to keep busy bureaucrats
> from troubling about. There's a war to run, after all. Unless his
> assignment this time is to experience the horror for some
> functionary who stumbled upon the secret reports of the death
> camps, by this time flooding out of the Zone, so as not to be
> troubled by a guilty conscience for allocating resources towards
> capturing Nazi scientists, rather than attempting to liberate the
> camps straight off.
>
> The poor soul that Pirate is channeling feels guilty. His
> evacuation passes through "ruinous secret cities of
> poor, places whose 'names he has never heard...' " There
> is a sense that he has lived a different life, that he was one
> of those "VIP faces remembered behind bulletproof windows
> speeding through the city..." or, their chauffeur ("half-silvered
> images in a view finder"). Close, but no cigar?
>
> Guilty and deserving of this fate, nonetheless, is the sense
> I'm picking up, and it tends to universalize this evacuation,
> or personalize it, if you like, w/r/t Pirate's subconscious.
>
> jody
>
>
> On Oct 24, 2005, at 6:14 PM, jbor at bigpond.com wrote:
>
>> ... pp. 3-7, coupla weeks
>>
>> Pirate's dream of the Evacuation which opens the novel is not just 
>> any normal dream, and it's not just about the evacuations from London 
>> which were happening in 1944, though that provides the pretext. 
>> Pirate's "talent" for getting into the thoughts and fantasies of 
>> others means that he has "seen" what's going on in the Nazi death 
>> camps too, and has empathised with the prisoners on the transports. 
>> While he has been able to manage his telepathic skill over the years, 
>> it is in dream, where his conscious mind and psychological defence 
>> mechanisms are in abeyance, that the true horror of the Nazi 'Final 
>> Solution' is dredged up from within his subconscious, manifesting in 
>> imagery and dialogue. Pirate's surreal dreamscape which opens the 
>> novel is triggered by the evacuations which were going on in London 
>> at the time, because these are a reminder to him, or to his 
>> conscience, of the "evacuations" which have been going on in Germany 
>> since the late 1930s.
>>
>> best
>>
>