BTZ42: The Randomness of Slothrop's Sexual Visitations

[Smoke Teff]

Joseph says elsewhere that there is good reason to believe Slothrop's map
is "phenomenologically predictive."

I too think that there is probably, in the 'real world' of the novel, an
actual relationship between Slothrop's sexual encounters and later rocket
strikes to the same location. Though I remember Monte speculating about
that being an assumption we readers are maybe too fast to make. I can't
remember if he (Monte: if you) ever came up with anything that seemed
conclusive.

The language on p. 87 seems to have a bit of deliberate bureaucratic
vagueness:

"the two images, girl-stars and rocket-strike circles, demonstrated to
coincide."

Also we can say that >50% of the sexual encounters pre-date the rocket
strikes:

"Helpfully, Slothrop has dated most of his stars. A star always comes *before
*its corresponding rocket strike."

This assumes that A) the dates on the stars are actually intended (by
Slothrop) to signify the dates Slothrop boned someone in that particular
location, and B) that Slothrop is accurate with the dates.

I'm not so sure that both of those assumptions are safe to make.

If Slothrop is an obsessive (as his MMPI tells us on p. 92, at least
according to Pointsman) then wouldn't he date *all *the stars?

Does that kind of attention to detail sound like the Slothrop we eventually
get to know? Does fixation on time--and the ability to remember the date
with accuracy--sound like the Slothrop we know? He of the scattering,
diminishing personal density, him of the narrow present ("It may get to
where you’re having trouble remembering what you were doing five minutes
ago, or even—as Slothrop now—what you’re doing here")

Then again, we mostly know the Slothrop that comes *after *the sexual
encounters the map might reveal.

Maybe Slothrop is still iffy with the dates, which might explain the
variable lag time (between two and ten days).

I'm not certain about those being reasonable assumptions but for the sake
of preserving some of the book's other, essential mysteries, and until
proven otherwise, I think there is a real correspondence between the maps.
And Slothrop's probably does pre-date Mexico's.




I think this is one obvious idea: Perhaps, in union with another person,
Slothrop achieves a moment of such radical expansion, transcendence, that
he creates a phenomenon outside the normal forward-moving linearity of the
way most humans perceive time (thus enabling, according to Pointsman's
theory, a modification of the normal order of cause-and-effect).

Pointsman, p. 91: "There are no 'other angles.' There is only forward--*into
it*--or backward."

This binary sounds particularly sexual to me, though if that's the case, I
think Pointsman--demonstrated to be a bit alien to the animal actualities
of human sex--makes a mistake here with the word *or*. With
sex--hopefully--there is forward *and *backward.
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