My brain couldn't stop thinking about the last section, mostly the way the story elements align with the final section's headers (even the non-header headline about Gerhardt becoming a sodium amytal freak). Tyrone's propulsion when flushed down the pipe by, possibly, Malcolm's turd (getting one of his dingleberries jammed up his nose), predicts (or is? Or parallels? Or synchronicities?) Gottfried's journey in the rocket. Slothrop's vision also suggests that there is only one of every person. In some way, is Slothrop also Gottfried? Not literally (although maybe literally?!). But he too becomes close and intimate with Katje. Gottfried, surrounded by the Imipolex chamber, reflects on the smell from childhood (I can't find this passage at the moment but I'm certain it was there). Gottfried also has an erection in this Imipolex chamber as he's ready to be rocketed to his end. What are the connections here? What is the synchronicity between Gottfried and Slothrop?
Another bit: one of Gottfried's memories as he's trying to remember as much as he can before his end is about a red terrier that came to see him off and he "can't remember the meaning of red." In Slothrop's fantasy, he constantly refers to Malcolm X as "Red," and he assumes Red was the one to flush the toilet, to see him off.
I don't know how it all fits together but at least it's all there in my head for the majority of the reread. Hopefully I'm just in Brennschluss right now and the ideas will start rolling in with the descent.
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