A very different but plausible take on Slothrop and Bianca

[Mark Kohut]

very fine and I will add my two cents. Very possibly fantasy but not a
dream. P reserves
dreams for other stuff, I say without saying more cause I can't wait
for correct words.

A--And, if dreamed he IS OFF the moral hook, I suggest as well.

On Sun, Jan 10, 2016 at 2:49 PM,  <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:
> Tore Rye Andersen sent me his interpretation of the sequence off-list and
> gave the OK to post it. I find his arguments very persuasive:
>
> Have you considered that the whole scene with Bianca may be simply a
> dream/fantasy by Slothrop? I believe there is some textual evidence to
> support this theory: 1) Slothrop is prone to vivid fantasies about girls,
> and these fantasies are often presented as 'real' - that is, the narrator
> doesn't explicitly point out their status as fantasy (see e.g. the orgy
> under Nordhausen on the top of p. 304). Might the scene with Bianca be yet
> another fantasy, just more elaborate than the others? The latter part of the
> scene certainly slides into fantasy, when Slothrop is inside his own cock -
> which is also somehow the rocket. 2) Or might it all be a dream? The chapter
> starts with Slothrop waking from a dream about Llandudno. Then he wakes,
> more or less, and in the corner of his vision "he catches a flutter of red"
> - note the uncertainty here. And then, crucially, after exchanging a few
> comments with her (if it is really her), we get this: "Hmm. Maybe he'll go
> back to sleep, here" (468) - and then the sex scene unfolds. I think an
> argument can be made that he does indeed go back to sleep. At least, the
> possibility remains open, which does give the remaining scene a somewhat
> ambiguous status. Maybe it happened, maybe Slothrop dreamt/fantasized it
> (which doesn't let him off the moral hook, of course). On p. 492-493 Bianca
> once again 'visits' Slothrop as he sleeps, and once again it is not
> specifically pointed out as a dream.
>
> A few additional observations: Shirley Temple is mentioned during the
> imaginary orgy on p. 304. The next time she's mentioned is when Bianca
> imitates Shirley Temple on p. 466, and then she's mentioned again on p. 493,
> when Bianca 'visits' Slothrop in a dream (and his own voice suddenly sounds
> just like Shirley Temple's). So there seems to be a pattern involving
> Shirley Temple/fantasy/imaginary orgy/Bianca.
>
> Just to play the Devil's advocate with regard to my own theory, there's a
> small detail on p. 481 that would seem to indicate that Slothrop did have
> sex with Bianca: he apparently finds her frock "with a damp trace of his own
> semen still at the hem" - but then again: is it really her dress, and can
> Slothrop really recognize his own semen? And what's more, the other semen
> stain Slothrop encounters in the novel (on p. 297, under Nordhausen) is
> fake, planted there for the tourists.
>
> At any rate, I believe that the sex scene with Bianca confirms Tony Tanner's
> point that readers of GR are never entirely sure whether they are in a
> bombed-out building or a bombed-out mind. Is the baby smiling, or is it just
> gas? Which do you want it to be?
>
>
> [ and another bit of evidence for Tore's theory - the sequence (Penguin, p.
> 427-8) where Pokler has a sudden fantasy about having sex with his young
> daughter. This goes on for a long paragraph, but concludes with: "No. What
> Pokler did was choose to believe … " etc.]
>
> Laura
>
> - Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
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