Reading

[Tore Rye Andersen]

Laura:

> Another Slothrop-Gottfried connection: p.469-470, where Slothrop 
> finds himself inside his own cock: "He is enclosed. Everything is 
> about to come, come incredibly, and he's helpless here in this 
> exploding enterprise... red flesh echoing... an extraordinary sense 
> of waiting to rise..."
>
> This could easily be a description of Gottfried in the rocket [...]
 
As Laura says, the description of Slothrop inside his
own cock mirrors the description of Gottfried inside the Rocket, right down
to the description of an explosion "getting ready to erupt, somewehere below
his feet" (470), which echoes the description of Gottfried in the 
Rocket on p. 760: "The first star hangs between his feet." So there's clearly
a Slothrop/Gottfried connection here.
 
B-but wait, there's more: Compare these descriptions of something between or 
below Slothrop's/Gottfried's feet with Greta's description of herself in the Imipolex
costume (p. 488): "There was an abyss between my feet." So there is an additional
link between Slothrop in his cock/Gottfried in the Rocket plus Imipolex shroud
and Greta in her Imipolex costume. 
 
And the pattern with the void between the feet is repeated once again, on 
p. 517, where the ""tightly steered passage of a "you" - the Rocket, but also 
per implication the reader - is described: 
"the unimaginable fires at your feet"...
 
So the link signaled by the "something between/below the feet" (which is of course 
a description of someone inside the Rocket/the Machine) extends from Slothrop
and Gottfried to Greta, a-and even to us, the readers. You didn't really think
you could escape, did you? We're ALL immachinated.
 
Happy new year!
 
Tore
 
 
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