BtZ42/11 - Kryptosam, Wuotan, Pirate as robot

[Monte Davis]

JT> Someone must have tracked the chronology of events.

Again:
https://pynchonnotes.openlibhums.org/articles/abstract/10.16995/pn.401/

On Sat, May 28, 2016 at 9:25 PM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:

> Excellent summary with funny lines, just the right emphasis.
> The chronology question is interesting, I have assumed that it was the
> same cylinder, and that the move to the seance was a step back in time,
> because Prentice meets Mexico there, but it is also possible that by that
> time he has already retrieved Katje, or different rocket, different
> message, now we know how it works.  Someone must have tracked the
> chronology of events.
>
> One thing about the chronology - I think it is important that we know
> before this episode how driven by ambition Prentice is. Otherwise he
> becomes too goofy.
> > On May 27, 2016, at 1:28 PM, kelber at mindspring.com wrote:
> >
> > Episode 11 is one of the shortest (the shortest? I haven't gone through
> and counted) in the book.
> >
> > Summary: This is the first mention of IG Farben in the book, coupled
> with the second mention of Dr. Jamf. We learned in the earlier conversation
> between Pointsman and Spectro that Slothrop was previously one of Jamf's
> subjects. Now, via a brochure for one of IG Farben's dye products, we get a
> view of Jamf's focus - the marriage of the chemical and the psychosexual.
> Pirate, his psychosexual profile being accurately pegged by Them, is
> quickly able to decode the Kryptosam-inked message. He's being asked to
> step in and save an operative from a perilous situation.
> >
> > Some specifics:
> >
> > The Kryptosam pamphlet is the first explicit mention of the running
> theme connecting control, death and sexuality. Kind of an early rendering
> of "grab 'em by the balls and their hearts and minds will follow." Or
> liebestod, Nazi-industrialized. Pirate's orgasm - petit mort - is a
> necessary step in a military-industrial process.
> >
> > That the hidden Kryptosam ink develops into a "Negro-brown" color seems
> an echoing of the Negro/shit paranoia of the Kenosha Kid episode. When we
> meet Katje some episodes later, she's wearing a dress in "a rich cocoa
> shade known as 'nigger' in this country [Britain]."
> >
> > "They hunt the sky like Wuotan and his mad army." Wuotan and his wild
> hunt signifying death to those who see it (a folkloric concept most
> recently ripped off by Game of Thrones, in the form of the White Walkers).
> After the obscurities of the Kenosha Kid, this is a little heavy-handed, no?
> >
> > "Pirate's own robot hands…" Pirate, having masturbated on command, has
> become a cog in the machine. His sexual kinks mapped with scientific
> precision - measured input creates the required output - Pointsman's dream
> subject.
> >
> > The chilling part of this episode is that it links IG Farben squarely
> with British intelligence. The operative - presumably Katje - wrote a
> message in Kryptosam. Was it made available to her by the Brits or was it
> readily available in Blicero's quarters?  Either way, British Intelligence
> knows all about it. In a sense, Kryptosam is the anti-W.A.S.T.E., an
> alternate form of communication, not for the preterite, but for Them.
> >
> > One final question: Are we to assume that this message was contained in
> the cylinder retrieved at the bomb site by Pirate, right after his banana
> breakfast? If so, this episode is misplaced chronologically.
> >
> > Laura
> >
> >
> > -
> > Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list
>
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>
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