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

[jporter]

On Oct 25, 2005, at 6:37 AM, jbor at bigpond.com wrote:

> .... 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.
>

It feels a bit too focused to be a composite, or if it is, Pirate's own
personality is dominating it, if only subconsciously, and giving it
a single vision. So perhaps the sense of guilt I'm detecting is coming
from Pirate- accompanied by the feeling of not belonging with this
group of preterite souls, the class of which he doesn't often mingle,
and now seems perplexed to find himself among- at this late stage.

> 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.
>

My resources (time especially) are stretched just now, but I think there
is some evidence out there that the Allies, especially within elite
circles, were well aware of the death camps by then. Even if the
accounts were few, those in the know would be just the people
whose imaginations an asset like Pirate would be assigned to control.
They would, in fact, be the leaders. "Dismissed or ignored"- precisely
the goal of his intervention. Spookily reminiscent of events closer
to our own times.

> 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 know we've been round about this before, but I can't read
that passage without getting the sense that the point of view
being channeled is inside the speeding car, perhaps driving,
and looking at the more elite personages in the back seat
by glancing in the rear view mirror.

>
> 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".
>

Will get there. Morning hasn't broken yet. There's still iron queens
and crystal palaces to consider.

jody



> 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
>>>
>>
>