GR/evacuation/sirens

[jbor at bigpond.com]

On 30/10/2005 Erik T. Burns wrote:

> pynchon's certainly not using "evacuation" in the beginning in the 
> Benny
> Hill way; it is possibly coincidental (and indeed what other word 
> could he
> use for evacuation in the sense of masses-flee-the-doomed-city sense?) 
> but
> at the same time the whole first section (until Pirate wakes up) has an
> intestinal feel to it, velvety and in the dark, constricted and smelly.
>
> so it's a neat coincidence, if that's what/all it is.

It doesn't add anything for me, but there is a claustrophobic feel to 
the opening dream sequence I agree. I do think that Pirate's dream is a 
purging of some of the really horrific baggage from his mind and 
imagination.

> as for the siren-or-rocket-or-both doing the screaming in line 1, i 
> don't
> want to get tied down to any one reading. all clear or air raid alert 
> both
> work, a rocket itself is also logical. a combination of two or three of
> these also works. obviously something has these people on the move, it 
> could
> be the sound of the rocket, it could be a raid siren, it could be the 
> all
> clear. it makes _sense_ that the sound heard in that line is the all 
> clear,
> but that doesn't mean it's the only sound.
> worth noting that the next rocket sound is a "crack-blast" on page 72.
> (after page 4's equally ambiguous "Screaming holds across the sky." 
> that's
> obviously the same screaming as in line 1.)

Yes, and I think the paragraph with the second mention of the screaming 
is Pirate waking up, on the very cusp between dream and waking, and 
very much empathising with the evacuee's predicament. At the end of the 
first section, Pirate notes the vapour trail and acknowledges to 
himself that "he won't hear the thing come in". In a way, if it's 
literally just an air raid or all clear siren then it's quite prosaic, 
but in literal terms I think that's what it has to be. (And I think it 
has to be the warning siren in terms of the actual rocket with Katje's 
SOS message in it that arrives that morning). But those other readings 
(the sound of the rocket, Gotffried's scream, the scream of the death 
camp victims) are still valid symbolically I think (or hope), by virtue 
of both Pirate's special talent and the allusiveness and ambiguity of 
the opening sequence.

I think the "it has happened before", "there is nothing to compare it 
to now", "it is too late", "the Evacuation still proceeds, but it's all 
theatre" observations at the outset all hinge on the difference between 
the old buzzbombs during the Blitz and the new V-2s, which is an 
important element of the novel, and especially in these first few 
sections. Evacuation isn't an effective response any more, and everyone 
realises it, seems to be the point on one level. I think, more than 
anything, the correlation between the London evacuees and the Holocaust 
deportees which leads Pirate's subconscious to merge the two 
experiences into one, is a psychological one. It's how they were 
thinking as their ultimate destination loomed.

best

> do other rockets scream in GR? do sirens? yes they do, yes they do:
>
> page 215: "because sending the RAF to make a terror raid against 
> civilian
> Lübeck was the unmistakable long look that said hurry up and fuck me, 
> that
> brought the rockets hard and screaming, the A4s, which were to've been 
> fired
> anyway, a bit sooner instead..."
>
> or
>
> page 409: "...and the Rocket crashed somewhere over in 
> Peenemünde-West, in
> Luftwaffe territory. The dirty pillar of smoke drew the screaming fire
> engines and truckloads of workers by in a wild parade."