Gravity's Rainbow autodidact, sorta

[Mark Kohut]

Joseph,
 
I like this; think it laudable and interesting.....only thing I miss---or I would do
were I doing it (and I am doing something like it re AtD)--is get down some
of those offhand but thematic remarks---thematic for TRP's vision--such
as the scumbled paint & time remark early in GR....there are other such.....
 
Also, rockets, banana, phallus......yes and internal comparison but also 
an internal contrasting even more, yes......

From: Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net>
To: Pynchon Mailing List <pynchon-l at waste.org> 
Sent: Tuesday, January 10, 2012 9:36 PM
Subject: Re: Gravity's Rainbow autodidact, sorta

second 2 chapters 3 and 4
++++++++
Teddy Bloat ( upper class)enters bldg of Achtung goes into office of Tantivy  mucker Maffick and Slothrop with spy camera. By describing the detritus on Slothrop's desk we are introduced to P's penchant for lists that immerse us in the entropy of a culture( particularly the coming American culture) filled with commercial products, along with  the normal food and effluent stains of humanity. Earlier such a list composted into the black humus out of which the bananas grow, and shorter lists recorded the rubble of war . Bloat is there to photo Slothrop's map  of London. That map is to outline the battleground of the narrative conflicts . It is  later replaced by other maps and expands as the field of the story expands. We don't yet know who ordered the photos taken but Bloat has gotten info about Slothrop from Tantivy.

THE MAP:  colored stars mark the names of girls in locations where  Slothrop had one day affairs with English girls close to where there were bomb-strikes. Map called a beaverboard maze(wink, nudge) . (According to Bloat the map started with S's assignment to rocket investigations, But in the next section Tantivy says the map was started before he helped move Slothrop to that rocket research  job) ????
+++++++
Next we follow S to current rocket site in Greenwich then into his and Tantivy's memories  with Tantivy interested in S's sex life,  we visit bits of S memories of English women and find he tells them about fireflies, which they have never seen. S is largely focused on and literally chilled by the idea of a silent V2 with his name on it.  He recalls his recovery of young girl from rubble who asked for gum and smiled. He thinks of his death by rocket as 4 years overdue, as the apocalyptic judgement of the WORD, each strike a sermon on vanity, the final word on every collection of human architecture, flesh and possessions.. He recalls how first strike friday last September(6:43:16)(It took a long time for the British intelligence services to understand the nature of the threat from the new weapons developed in Peenemünde. The most clearsighted was Doctor R. V. Jones, who, on 16th June 1943, identified a rocket on an aerial photo of Peenemünde.)(One
 Gehlert launching pad was completely destroyed on December 18 when a rocket fell back onto the pad and the warhead exploded. There were at least 5-6 launching points at Gehlert, only one point can be plainly seen today. )(September 8, 1944 Today in 1944, V-2 rockets were first launched against London by Germany. This is the actual event Slothrop and Pynchon are referring to)  which he was close to  caused an erection. This also triggers a meditation on family history as recorded  on gravestones. We find  that  Slothrop's Puritan ancestors did not move west  with capitalist opportunities but stayed in the Berkshires(MA) and despite early promise watched their fortunes and investments dwindle though never to zero.He remembers a night in Lenox when local Hotel burned and filled spring sky with embers( reminiscent of fireflies?northern lights  but also God's judgement) He is about to be sent from Achtung to P.W.E. ( Political Warfare  Executive) 
++++++

On Jan 7, 2012, at 11:58 PM, Joseph Tracy wrote:

> So here is my first installment of abbreviated chapter summaries from the 1st 2 chapters of GR. Discussion is cool but what I really hope listers can help with is to correct plot summary errors  and suggest  any missing elements absolutely critical to the plot line. The point here is that when you are 400 pages into it you can kind of review the action and not lose the connective tissue or lose track of characters. Some chapters have brief comments too. More subjective, but If you think I'm way off let me know.
> +++++++
> A screaming  across sky  first  sonic "glimpse" of rocket from POV of soldiers evacuating downtown london  subway station  in complete darkness ominous with possibility of falling glass 
> 
> people in subway journey to narrower, roof damaged, poorer, dirty spaces on periphery of London, like trip to hell one character thinking "of course no one would save us".  Then light comes with dawn and sense of hope//life/expansion.
> 
> Pirate ( commando/spy, thief, trader, fast reactor) wakes, shoves cot to catch falling Teddy Bloat.  House is full of men living there or having come there for banana breakfast. House has greenhouse enclosed ( people in glass houses?) rooftop garden growing lots of bananas( boys w bananas  rowdy, playful (primates/animals)) Pirate comes down stairs with bananas.  Bananas: United Fruit- Dulles-Wacky humor- colonialism-monkeys- phallus-guns
> 
> +++++++
> Boys making many banana foods from mead to pancakes.
> Pirate also sees rocket coming from holland (possible?) in early light -incoming mail- calls about  radar. later gets call about mail to Greenwich(zero base of time).  Pirate( psychic  able to dream other's dreams, working for for Firm, is driven past americans( singing "colder than a witches tit"  song…) considers  his dream/fantasy history with  the Firm focusing on Lord Blatherard's (sanjak of Novi Pazar) adenoid which similar to War of worlds' grows to enormous size and threatens London. Pirate communicates with adenoid and as a result Blatherard is suffocated in bathtub of tapioca pudding.. 
> 
> Final line of this  adenoid passage seems worth considering: *"Prate Prentice had saved Europe from the Balkan Armageddon the old men dreamed of ….though not from WW2, of course,. But by then the Firm was allowing Pirate only homeopathic doses of peace, just enough to keep his defenses up, but not enough for it to poison him. "
>            comments
> Several things  are accomplished here at start of GR at the fade out of the adenoid scene. We see that Pynchon is describing WW2 London autumn of 1944 We see that the yanks have arrived with fresh energy and we see a part of military intelligence response to Hitler's attack ( particularly Rockets) that employs psychics, psychiatrists, and spies  and that is as much a response to the prevailing mythology of war( WW1, war of worlds) as to its 1944  global/  technological contours. This final sentence* tells us that there is an authoritarian mindset in the british war effort that was more prepared for the the last war than the one they face, and that along with legitimate fears, the authorities responded aggressively to paranoid delusions and so presumed to be in control and acting for the general good. The tone is lighter than in the 1st chapter but  profoundly darkened by rocket.
> 
> Py has already introduced us to 3 layers of consciousness 1) real memory and events from WW2, toned darkly and posing questions about the future( rockets are a futuristic aspect of WW2 still with scary aspect in 1973 and introduced with Von Braunn quote)  2) highly colorful boys in uniforms  with  power, liquor, toys and big bananas who are to be  major characters of narrative line  3) other dimensions of consciousness( sub…, myth ,collective un…): fear of hell in subway scene, Attack of Giant Adenoid, orgy with new messiah, internal comparison between rocket, banana, and phallus. All show a tension between experience and memory, reality and record . If there is a prevailing mythology of WW2 Pynchon seems to be mocking it, and reaching for a less contrived, less reverent (to the point of hilarity) and more frightening mythic landscape where neither evil nor delusions are a binary proposition and rockets are not just in the past.
> On Jan 7, 2012, at 1:42 PM, Joseph Tracy wrote:
> 
>> My reading history with Pynchon is odd. So is my life history, but I won't bore you with much of that. I was profoundly elsewhere during Pynchon's literary rise having left the mainstream of culture for a spiritual commune and many years of celibacy, prayer, and hard physical work.  I broke from that personal history after much heart searching and a good deal of research into church history, human history, and textual and historic analysis of the Bible. Thank american towns and universities for a great library system. Somewhere around 2000 I was given a copy of Vineland by a  good friend with  whom I played music and shared an attempt to homeschool our children, ours were no longer  home-schooled and graduating High School;  his son 11 years old. Kevin had an English masters and he gave  me Vineland because I have a weird sense of humor and because I had lived in Arcata Ca for years. 
>> 
>> So I read Vineland and found it  the funniest most intriguing and oddly structured book I had ever read, then V, then COL49 then GR, then Vineland again while participating in the p-list discussion of it.  I didn't read much Pynchon criticism apart from starting and deciding to leave off Weisenberger and some articles recommended on the P-list; thanks friends.  I then read M& D with a  tad more internet research. The first Pynchon book I truly began to study was ATD.  I found this whole multivalent inquiry and attempt at auto-didacticism  via Pynchonian digression richly satisfying, amusingly wacky, and appropriately weird  leading to books about ancient greek philosopher's, the history of fossil fuels,  and a growing knowledge of relatively underexplored European history. ATD remains my personal favorite Pynchon book but they all seem more and more like a single work.  
>> 
>> I had enjoyed and been powerfully influenced by Gravity's Rainbow but did also find it to be the most dense and difficult of P's works.  I put off a thorough second read until now.  Mike Jings translation questions inspired me to begin to read GR again while making summary notes after each segment. The quality , range and subtlety of the prose is striking me. The power with which P immerses the reader in the terror of London under aerial bombardment, while simultaneously making jokes and setting up the trajectory of his alternative history/commentary is wildly impressive. Chasing leads is incredible -the rainbow patch on black over flaming sword that looks like rocket forSHAEF, possible Crowley/Ian Fleming collaboration on luring  Rudolf Hess to Scotland. How he orchestrated all this is boggling.
>> 
>> So I will be posting some thoughts and asking some questions about Gavity's Rainbow.  I'm also going to post my chapter summaries with the hope of eliminating errors and adding absolutely crucial information. So if I get some feedback , muchos gracias. If not, sokay too.
>> 
>> 
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