You never did the Kenosha Kid?

[jbor at bigpond.com]

> >I'm not convinced that the point of the Sodium Amytal injection
> >is to put Slothrop to "sleep", or that that's what happens when one is
> >under the drug's influence. It's a "truth serum", isn't it? He's
> >resisting the intended effect of the drug -- that much is clear -- but
> >I don't agree that the intended effect is to put him to sleep. It's
> >pretty obviously an interrogation.
>

On 01/09/2005 adam wrote:

> there might be somthing in looking at the other uses of sodium amytal 
> in the book to help clarify its effects.

Yes. It was suggested that it was being used on Slothrop as an 
anaesthetic, which I don't think is correct. But the general point I 
agreed with was that Slothrop is actively trying to resist the usual or 
intended effect of the drug in this particular lab situation (in other 
words, its intended effect isn't to induce sleep, it's meant to 
elicit truthful responses during interrogation, deep-seated 
confessions.)

I think that von Goll is a recreational user (as also is Pointsman, if 
"amobarbital sodium" is off the same shelf -- see p. 169), and so the 
purposes and effects might be somewhat different in their contexts.
 
Tchitcherine uses it again on Slothrop (390-392) as well, for much the 
same reasons that it was used on him back at St Veronica's. And I do 
think that back in the hospital it is a part of the broader 
surveillance operation which has been mounted on Slothrop (i.e. Bloat 
keeping tabs on Slothrop's star map which appears to prefigure the 
rocket strikes, quizzing Tantivy, shadowing Slothrop) -- why not?

But I think this is the clincher: 

"Each room will hold a single unpleasantness for him: a test he must 
pass. He wonders if Pointsman hasn't set these up too. Of course, of 
course, he must . . . how did the young bastard ever find out? Have I 
been talking in m' sleep? Have they been slipping in at night with 
their truth serums to--and just at the clear emergence of the thought, 
here is his first test tonight. In the first room: a hypodermic outfit 
has been left lying on a table. [...]" (231 -- Pudding's visit to Katje 
as Domina Nocturne)

Pointsman is Pudding's underling, and so the latter would certainly 
know what type of experiments Pointsman and his crew conduct.
 
Way it reads to me, the 'Kenosha Kid' variations are "occupying 
Slothrop's awareness" (i.e. keeping his mind busy) both before *and* 
after he is supposedly woken by the doctor, and both before *and* after 
he is given the Sodium Amytal injection, though he starts to lose his 
grip there at the bottom of p. 61, in the midst of Variation No. 6. The 
doctor has leaned in "to wake him" and inject the serum right in the 
middle of Variation No. 4.
 
So, a conscious attempt to resist or subvert the experiment (his 
"[f]alsifications", "distorted thought processes" and psychopathic 
defiancy, as Pointsman concludes on p. 90) is still the best bet as to 
what Slothrop is actually doing on pp. 60-1.

Anyway, some interesting ideas and questions to think about. Welcome.
 
best

> when he gets abducted on Peenemunde, Gerhardt von Goll is "behind [a 
> metal door]... singing and babling like a drunk", on "that sodium 
> amytal," and as he's being taken along out he (seemingly at random) 
> cries "she baffs at nothing, the heterospeed" (511-12).... "Zhadev's 
> jacket with the gold-starred pogoni on the shoulders gets draped 
> around the Springer, who is now humming everyone a Kurt Weill 
> medley"... "about halfway up [the embankment] Springer blows a 
> tremendous fart that echoes for minutes across the historic ellipse, 
> like now to do for you folks my anal impression of the A4.... 'Oh, 
> fuck you,' Slothrope snarls. 'An erect green steed of planetoid and 
> bone,' nods the Springer in reply."... "It isn't clear if Springer 
> knows who he is" (514). 
> SA is obviously a "truth serum," right, because here too the pretty 
> blond auxillary is noting everything he says down in shorthand. but 
> its more relevant to look at how springer is acting - its pretty 
> random and impulsive. i don't have much uh experience as to how truth 
> serums work normally, but maybe this is a kind of 
> automatism/"stream-of-conciousness" inducing type of drug. its easy to 
> assume given the general paranoia themes (surrealism-derived 
> techniques???). there is more randomness and von goll on SA in the 
> movie under the rug again on p746. its seems to me like this kind of 
> behavoir _is_ an exception for von goll, he is on dope, but its also 
> possible its not and that this is just attributal to his character, 
> i've only read the book once. i guess there is one mention of him 
> maniacally chasing a rocket (?) on his movie-director-camera's crane 
> thing i remember.
> the point is, if SA is meant to induce random psychological utterance, 
> this would fit the randomness of the kenosha kid, wherever the 
> reference is from. but does the kenosha kid come around before or 
> after the SA? based on the sentence everyone's been looking at so much 
> ("These changes on the text ... are occupying Slothrop's awareness as 
> the doctor leans in out of the white overhead to wake him and begin 
> the session. The needle slips without pain into the vein.. : 10% 
> sodium amytal, one cc at a time, as needed." 61), i'd think it was 
> before. "occupying AS the doctor" and _then_ the SA injection. if he's 
> being awakened than he was either asleep or possibly recovering from 
> some other kind of drug. it depends on whether you think people have 
> "awareness" when they're asleep. and the credibility of the automatism 
> effect of SA depends on the reasons people are using it, which is far 
> from clear (for me at least...)
>  
> what exactly are slothrop's interrogators "after" (p90, haha) anyway? 
> i doubt its really to find out why slothrop "knows" where the rockets 
> are falling, later on mexico's whole resistance joining is induced by 
> his realization that pointsman has known about the connections to the 
> chemical cartels all along. there are relations between the fake 
> schwarzkommando and slothrop's SA-induced anal raping in his toilet 
> dwelling hallucination (and all the other racist overtones--- WW2 
> theme?). its maybe relevant that pointsman _doesn't_ know about the 
> real schwarzkommando(?). is he carrying out the continually referenced 
> pavlonian experiments just for his own ends, given the opportunity 
> under the war? what is the point of setting up the hoax 
> schwarzkommando?