BtZ42 Scene 8, pp47-53, part 1

[Mark Kohut]

>From Fowler's summary
Pointsman meets with Kevin Spectro at St. Veronica's Hospital, where they
discuss Slothrop's
"gift," Pavlov's idea of conditioned response, and Dr. Porkyevitch's
octopus, which will eventually play a part in the skullduggery when it
'attacks' Katje on the Riviera and Slothrop 'saves' her from it.
(see pp 186 and 187 and then 533 Viking edition) The last citation is where
Katje finds the
conditioning fluid used on Octopus Grigori.

Notce in the conversations here, and in the conversations flash backed from
the past, Pointsman is cast as the cold and over-rational scientist,
Spectro as his humanistic foil. Slothrop's connections
with the rockets is remarked upon, and here is the first mention of Dr.
Laszlo Jamf, a sort of scientific
arch-fiend in the novel who not only created the unnatural plastic Impolex
but we will later learn [p84ff] conditioned Infant Tyrone Slothrop's baby
erections to respond to its smell; later still [p285]
Slothrop will learn that Jamf's rental fees for using him as a subject went
to finance his Harvard education, something of a consolation for being able
to "*feel them coming *days in advance"
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