CH. 4 summary and notes

[Mark Kohut]

Yes, with to me the beginning of a sense (via the text) that it all goes
way back in a way TS doesn't (yet) get; that body-deep gut feeling.....And
I would pretentiously leap, because we've all read it at least once, to ask
how much Pynchon wants it all to be seen as predetermined, ala
That Protestant Ethic Determinism and Psychological Determinism motif,
which might be conceptually linked, no?

On Mon, Apr 11, 2016 at 12:43 PM, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> >There is the sense here that Slothrop isn’t sure he is buying any version
> of this dream
>
> It's a sense we get from his gut, not his brains. Notice that in that
> fabulous family-history passage between "6:43:16 BDST" on p. 26 (V/P) and
> its closure with  "6:43:16 BDST" on p.29, there's no attempt to make us
> think that this meditation on "a peculiar sensitivity to what is revealed
> in the sky" went through Slothrop's mind at that moment, later, or ever.
> It's what he *is* in his gut, and maybe the valves in the veins in his
> cock, but not his forebrain. The narration supplies all the filigree of
> history and implication and contextual cross-linkage; Slothrop remains a
> schlemihl with mostly decent sympathies and instincts -- most salient among
> the latter, a "sense" as you say that Something Kinda Funny Is Going On
> Here.
>
> On Mon, Apr 11, 2016 at 2:11 AM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
>
>> Tracy summary CH 4
>>
>>  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  which he
>> was close to  caused an erection.
>>         ( historical wiki: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  V-2 rockets were first launched
>> against London by Germany.)
>>
>>  This memory of erection 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) Leave chapter with
>> connection between church spires and rockets ready for launching.
>>
>> Notes:    The chapter makes a powerful connection between sex,( the
>> hunger for life and continuity and physical comfort/ pleasure/ecstasy) and
>> death.( If evolution has a progressive quality towards self awarness and
>> memory, death is essential to that process, the individual life is lost for
>> the strength and survivability of the species)  We see that  Slothrop's
>> sexual appetite is countered by and aggravated by death’s inevitability.
>> His ancestors' gravestones' take on a weirdly comic tone even as his sense
>> of dread and inevitable judgement grows .  The use of Emiy Dickinsons
>> strange death comedies reinforce this paradox.I live in Vermont but was
>> born and lived many years on the west coast. The tone of the gravestones is
>> very accurate for New England.
>>
>> His memories also make a family connection between shit, money, and The
>> Word.
>>
>> The image of chuch spires as rockets is potent. It seems to contain the
>> idea of launching the individual toward immortality through a phalllic form
>> of worship. The notion is deeply patriarchal and  in the chapter sits at
>> odds with Slothrop’s uncontrolled imagination of English women. The
>> guidance system, the control mechanism becomes critical to this mindset.
>> The ultimate objective is to defy gravity completely, the idea being to
>> escape this world, to evade slippage, collapse, falling, death, returning
>> to zero. There is the sense here that Slothrop isn’t sure he is buying any
>> version of this dream; all around him  what went up is coming down with a
>> vengeance.
>>
>>
>> -
>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>>
>
>
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