The first chapter ends on a scene with Roger and Jessica spending Boxing Day with Jessica's sister's family. The perspective begins with Penelope, Jessica's niece, in a kind of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland montage of previous themes and characters hinted at in the details of the day. Penelope's sister Claire received a Goliwog for Christmas evoking the Schwarzkommando and Operation Black Wing. The two fish Penelope watches at the beginning taking the shape of Pisces, reminding the reader of both The White Visitation's PISCES (Psychological Intelligence Schemes for Expediting Surrender) and the abundance of astrological references recently made in the Peter Sascha/Leni Pökler sections. The pantomime they have gone to see was Hansel & Gretel which reminds us of Katje and Gottfried and Weissman's game (they even hint at the gender swapping often engaged in by the group). Of course the rocket hits reminding us of Slothrop and everything else, really. The war and all that. After the rocket hits, Gretel sings a song that mentions "We can fly to the moon, we'll be higher than noon in our polythene home in the sky" alluding to Imipolex and Jamf's obsession with plastics and chemical structures (as well as living on the moon which is Franz and Leni's daughter Ilse's fantasy). We're reminded of Carrol and Peter and their experiments with and connections to the afterlife by Penelope's visit from the ghost of her father. I'm sure there's more but that's all my memory of the first reading of the book will allow for now!
After the perspective shifts from Penelope's view to Roger's, the narrative becomes a bunch of whinging and grousing on Roger's part about how he suddenly knows Jessica will soon leave him. He thinks it's because Jessica is being infected by the War but I think it's because of his "skinny, 20-pushup arms." Maybe try improving your body instead of just pushing pins in a map all day! I bet Beaver has thick, masculine 25-pushup arms! That's how many pushups gives you big biceps like mine, right?
"If the rockets don't get her there's still her lieutenant. Damned Beaver/Jeremy is the War, he is every assertion the fucking War has ever made—that we are meant for work and government, for austerity: and these shall take priority over love, dreams, the spirit, the senses and the other second-class trivia that are found among the idle and mindless hours of the day. . . . Damn them, they are wrong. They are insane."
I take back that bit about Roger whinging and grousing because in actuality, I love him very much. I love poor heartsick Roger and his romantic view of the world and I hate the War and everybody who would tell Roger that he is being silly or irrational or nonsensical or immature. Fuck those guys. Fuck them right in their boring holes because they're so boring they probably wouldn't like it at all.
After the perspective shifts from Penelope's view to Roger's, the narrative becomes a bunch of whinging and grousing on Roger's part about how he suddenly knows Jessica will soon leave him. He thinks it's because Jessica is being infected by the War but I think it's because of his "skinny, 20-pushup arms." Maybe try improving your body instead of just pushing pins in a map all day! I bet Beaver has thick, masculine 25-pushup arms! That's how many pushups gives you big biceps like mine, right?
"If the rockets don't get her there's still her lieutenant. Damned Beaver/Jeremy is the War, he is every assertion the fucking War has ever made—that we are meant for work and government, for austerity: and these shall take priority over love, dreams, the spirit, the senses and the other second-class trivia that are found among the idle and mindless hours of the day. . . . Damn them, they are wrong. They are insane."
I take back that bit about Roger whinging and grousing because in actuality, I love him very much. I love poor heartsick Roger and his romantic view of the world and I hate the War and everybody who would tell Roger that he is being silly or irrational or nonsensical or immature. Fuck those guys. Fuck them right in their boring holes because they're so boring they probably wouldn't like it at all.
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