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

[Erik T. Burns]

rob wrote:

>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

yer kidding, right? 

these first paragraphs novel set out the major themes/images: the rocket, the inevitability of endless repetition, and evacuation, in all its senses. then the elect/preterite split as noted (vips v. derelicts).

i might even go out on a limb and claim that there is a direct offset between the dense dream/vision of The Evacuation and Pirate's actual morning ablutions:

"Pirate in the lavatory stands pissing, without a thought in his head." (GR p.6)

TRP has set something up here that lasts through the novel: shit, in its link to fertility and death, is elect.

etb



-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20051026/e671f632/attachment.html>