Round and Flat/Slothrop and Bianca

[Tore Rye Andersen]

>From: kelber at mindspring.com
>
>I never thought of this [Slothrop screwing Bianca in GR (or at least 
>dreaming of doing so)]
>as a dream or fantasy sequence (such as Pokler having sex with his 
>daughter).  Is this a widely >held view?  It's certainly one of the most 
>disturbing episodes in the book.
>
>Laura

No, I don't think it is a widely held view, and I can't say that I'm really 
convinced that Slothrop is dreaming here. Like you, I find this episode 
deeply disturbing, and perhaps my theory is motivated by this feeling. Let's 
say that I HOPE he's dreaming. There are some indications, though, that 
Slothrop could be dreaming this:

- The chapter begins with a dream: "Slothrop here's been dreaming about 
Llandudno, where he spent a rainy furlough once drinking bitter in bed with 
a tug skipper's daughter. Also where Lewis Carroll wrote that Alice in 
Wonderland." (GR, 468). [I've always loved the rhytm of that sentence.] So 
Slothrop's been dreaming, and what's more, he's been dreaming of sex. Of 
course the reference to Lewis Carroll, who had a well-known taste for little 
girls, is an indication of things to come - but whether 'those things' are a 
continuation of the dream or occur in the 'real' world of GR is hard to say.

- Slothrops wakes up, and alluring Bianca enters. When Slothrop sees her, he 
thinks: "Hmm. Maybe he'll go back to sleep, here." But instead he continues 
the conversation with Bianca. Or does he? Perhaps the whole encounter has 
been a continuation of the dream about Llandudno, or maybe he did see her 
and went "back to sleep, here." It's really quite hard to tell.

- The very nature of their sexual encounter is also somewhat surreal. 
Slothrop ends up inside his own cock, and what begins as a more or less 
realistic (or rather pornographic) description of the sexual act ends as 
surrealism.

- Slothrop has a well-documented history of sexual fantasies. We're told 
that he inserted "fantasies into the yarns he spun for Tantivy back in the 
ACHTUNG office" (302), and as he enters Nordhausen, he has a fantasy of "a 
delegation of girls in tight pink lab coats" and "a fabulous orgy, which 
goes on for days and days, full of poppies, play, singing, and carrying on" 
(304). The scene with Bianca might just be an extended representation of one 
of those fantasies.

In the end, though, you can't really be sure whether Slothrop is dreaming or 
not. It can't positively be 'proven' whether the scene is dreamed or real. 
The ontology of the scene is blurred, like so much of GR, and in the end, 
the reader has to decide for him- or herself what to believe. "Let the 
reader decide, let the reader beware. Good luck." I've decided to at least 
doubt the reality of Slothrop's sexual encounter with Bianca. The 
alternative hurts too much....

Best,

Tore

_________________________________________________________________
Find dine dokumenter lettere med MSN Toolbar med Windows-pc-søgning:  
http://toolbar.msn.dk