"What's a Thanatoid. OK, it's actually short for 'Thanatoid Personality.' 'Thanatoid' means 'like death, only different.'" (Vineland, p. 170)

[Kai Frederik Lorentzen]

There is a Languor of the Life
More imminent than Pain —
'Tis Pain's Successor — When the Soul
Has suffered all it can —

A Drowsiness — diffuses —
A Dimness like a Fog
Envelops Consciousness —
As Mists — obliterate a Crag.

The Surgeon — does not blanch — at pain
His Habit — is severe —
But tell him that it ceased to feel —
The Creature lying there —

And he will tell you — skill is late —
A Mightier than He —
Has ministered before Him —
There's no Vitality.


E. D., # 396

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"Emily Dickinson,
never far away ..."

(Gravity's Rainbow, p. 28)


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