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

[jbor at bigpond.com]

On 26/10/2005 Erik T. Burns wrote:

> 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.

No, not joking, just a respectful disagreement. After he wakes up 
Pirate takes a piss; I've never heard the word "evacuation" used 
idiomatically w/r/t one's bladder -- "evacuate one's bladder" just 
isn't right. In the text the word is capitalised: it's a proper noun, 
an Event. On p.4 people are twice described as "evacuees" -- though 
they might have been treated like pieces of shit I think it's a total 
stretch and a dead end to interpret the text as referring or alluding 
to them as such, even metaphorically. As a parallel example, there's a 
lot of homosexuality in the novel too but I don't think the term 
"queen" in line 5 of the text refers to an effeminate homosexual male 
(cf.  the "Affective Fallacy".)

best