Part XXIII begins Chapter 2, "Un Perm' au Casino Hermann Goering". I didn't know what that meant (I mean, I knew what five-sixths of it meant! It was the "perm'" part that was stumping me!) so I had to look it up. It means "A Furlough at the Hermann Goering Casino." And that's exactly what this chapter is about! It's about Tyrone Slothrop's furlough at the Herman Goering Casino in France. But being that everything in this book isn't exactly what it seems, it's also "L'expérience au Casino Hermann Goering"!
The quote used to open this chapter is
"You will have the tallest, darkest leading man in Hollywood." — Merian C. Cooper to Fay Wray
How does this relate? Is calling King Kong the tallest, darkest leading man the Hollywood equivalent of calling Poinstman's experiment on Tyrone Slothrop a furlough?
Slothrop is on furlough with his office mate and friend Tantivy Mucker-Maffick and Teddy Bloat, Tantivy's friend who has been spying on Slothrop. So already, it's feeling like a bit of a set-up for Slothrop. Not that I'm going off just those clues! I just read nearly two hundred pages of Pointsman drooling like one of his dogs over getting Tyrone Slothrop as a test subject!
This initial scene of Slothrop first laying eyes on the Casino, and the first morning as he looks out over the ocean in the cold morning weather is just lovely and tranquil. And that it's punctuated by a feeling deep within him that his day can't actually start until he hears a rocket explode is just fucking ugh. Yes, that's right. I just described something as "fucking ugh." That's why I'm such a great critic of intelligent literature. I know how to really deconstruct this shit.
Bloat comes into Slothrop's room "gnawing on a smoldering pipe" and now I can only think of him as Aarfy from Catch-22. And not just Aarfy. I'm picturing him as Charles Grodin from the film. So now my mental image of Bloat is that of a hipster Charles Grodin with Aarfy's psychotic demeanor.
Slothrop is immediately suspicious of Bloat. Perhaps because he should be suspicious of him! But mostly it's just because Slothrop is a paranoid personality and Bloat is basically a stranger to him. But also, I mean, he's right to be paranoid about him! I guess that's just the life of a paranoid. You're going to be paranoid and suspicious of everything and everyone and, occasionally, you'll be proven right. Which will just make you dig in your heels believing all the paranoia you were wrong about as well.
As Slothrop shaves and gets ready for the day, Tantivy begins yelling out the window at some French lasses. He looks back at his mates and says, "J'ai deux amis, aussi, by an odd coincidence. Par un bizarre coincidence, or something, oui?" Yeah. Or something is right, Tantivy. The word "coincidence" is the paranoiac's least accepted rationale. Nothing is coincidence. Which, when you're writing situations for characters in a novel, is ultimately true. Obviously nothing that happens to Slothrop or any of the others is a coincidence! As a writer, you can't actually write coincidences! So a character in a book should be a paranoiac! What does that do to a novel like Gravity's Rainbow? Ultimately it's a book about a guy who is trying to discover why his life is the way that it is and who made it that way. It's not all random and while, yes, he's paranoid, he's ultimately correct to be paranoid. But this is a novel. Even if Pynchon wrote a book where Slothrop wasn't correct to be paranoid, how would that be any different? Because Slothrop is still, as a character being written into situations by an author, being manipulated by some greater Them. Does Gravity's Rainbow ultimately not work or is its inability to cope with coincidence and conspiracy the entire point?! Or maybe it's just that none of us have any real free will because we're ultimately slaves to our kinks and desires and anxieties which force us to make the decisions we make. Like not being able to not write Gravity's Rainbow. Ultimately, Pynchon's ability to not write this book was hampered by his needs and desires in absolutely the same way Brigadier Pudding can't help gulping down Katje's fecal emissions.
Slothrop decides to wear a Hawaiian shirt on their picnic with the French lasses because that's a fashion option now thanks to the war in the Pacific! Man, couldn't we have defeated the Japanese before American GIs decided to go all-in on Hawaiian tourist culture? Although I guess it gave boring suburban white people a way to show they were loosening up and really getting wild by wearing Hawaiian shirts and lighting tiki torches in their backyards. Plus now they could euphemistically serve hot dogs in pineapple rings as oer d'oeuvres. Très chic!
Slothrop begins to feel that maybe he doesn't have to feel paranoid. The day is too lovely. The picnic too sensual. The company divine. But then comes the moment where it will all change. It begins with Bloat pointing to a woman standing by the sea and outright asking Slothrop if she's a friend of his. A mistake. A huge mistake, Bloat. When trying to get somebody to witness a thing you've manipulated so that they'll witness it, you cannot be the one to point it out to them. You must let them discover it themselves or it will mar the entire manipulation. If Slothrop had witnessed this woman (and the subsequent attack by an octopus which I've yet to mention) without Bloat pointing it out, perhaps later, Slothrop would not have begun to dissect every part of the interaction. Like how did Bloat just happen to have the crab to drive the octopus away? And how did Bloat know exactly how to drive the octopus away in the first place? And how come it was Bloat who pointed out the woman just before the attack anyway? And what was that thing that was said back at the hotel about coincidences?!
My friends and I used to go messing around in the Santa Cruz hills at night, hiking and junk. We eventually found an old abandoned set of buildings up there, unguarded. So we concocted a plan to take one of our other friends who didn't know about it up there where we would stumble upon a Satanic ritual. Some of our friends dressed up in black robes and set up candles and painted arcane symbols around one of the abandoned rooms. The plan was to have our friend, Bon Rowman, stumble upon it as we searched around the abandoned complex. But one friend, Bason Jeymer (our only actor friend, by the way!), took it upon himself to lead Bon Rowman to the building with the ritual, discover the Satanic ritual himself and then called Bon over in hushed words. "Bon! Bon! Come look at this! What's going on?!" As if it were nothing! As opposed to having Bon lead the way, stumble into the ritual, and be completely freaked out! As soon as Bason calmly called him over to check it out, the prank was ruined. Bon didn't buy it for a second. Anyway, that's the experiential veneer through which I interpreted this scene!
As Slothrop watches, Katje is attacked by the octopus which Pointsman trained to be enamored of Katje. Slothrop fails to save Katje until Bloat produces a crab and explains the octopus is just hungry. Slothrop uses the crab to lure the octopus away and Katje is saved.
Slothrop immediately becomes suspicious. Between Bloat having the crab and Katje's ID bracelet and one of the dancers speaking to the just-saved-from-the-octopus Katje in some language other than French, Slothrop can't help but be consumed by paranoia. Something isn't right here and he's right to think it isn't.
"So it is here, grouped on the beach with strangers, that voices begin to take on a touch of metal, each word a hard-edged clap, and the light, though as bright as before, is less able to illuminate . . . it's a Puritan reflex of seeking other orders behind the visible, also known as paranoia, filtering in. Pale lines of force whir in the sea air . . . pacts sworn to in rooms since shelled back to their plan views, not quite by accident of war, suggest themselves. Oh, that was no 'found' crab, Ace—no random octopus or girl, uh-uh. Structure and detail come later, but the conniving around him now he feels instantly, in his heart."
Subtly, during the rest of the picnic, Ghislaine, the woman who seems most associated with Bloat, gives off clues that Bloat is the master behind some grand manipulation here. And on the way back to the Casino, she nearly states it outright, suggesting the octopus was staged and that Slothrop should be very careful. Her revelation gives me goosebumps so I imagine it made Slothrop shit his pants. And then Katje tells Slothrop she thinks they were maybe destined to meet and that's it. Paranoid Level Alpha. His entire life's a set-up and, well, it's come to this . . . whatever this is!
The quote used to open this chapter is
"You will have the tallest, darkest leading man in Hollywood." — Merian C. Cooper to Fay Wray
How does this relate? Is calling King Kong the tallest, darkest leading man the Hollywood equivalent of calling Poinstman's experiment on Tyrone Slothrop a furlough?
Slothrop is on furlough with his office mate and friend Tantivy Mucker-Maffick and Teddy Bloat, Tantivy's friend who has been spying on Slothrop. So already, it's feeling like a bit of a set-up for Slothrop. Not that I'm going off just those clues! I just read nearly two hundred pages of Pointsman drooling like one of his dogs over getting Tyrone Slothrop as a test subject!
This initial scene of Slothrop first laying eyes on the Casino, and the first morning as he looks out over the ocean in the cold morning weather is just lovely and tranquil. And that it's punctuated by a feeling deep within him that his day can't actually start until he hears a rocket explode is just fucking ugh. Yes, that's right. I just described something as "fucking ugh." That's why I'm such a great critic of intelligent literature. I know how to really deconstruct this shit.
Bloat comes into Slothrop's room "gnawing on a smoldering pipe" and now I can only think of him as Aarfy from Catch-22. And not just Aarfy. I'm picturing him as Charles Grodin from the film. So now my mental image of Bloat is that of a hipster Charles Grodin with Aarfy's psychotic demeanor.
Slothrop is immediately suspicious of Bloat. Perhaps because he should be suspicious of him! But mostly it's just because Slothrop is a paranoid personality and Bloat is basically a stranger to him. But also, I mean, he's right to be paranoid about him! I guess that's just the life of a paranoid. You're going to be paranoid and suspicious of everything and everyone and, occasionally, you'll be proven right. Which will just make you dig in your heels believing all the paranoia you were wrong about as well.
As Slothrop shaves and gets ready for the day, Tantivy begins yelling out the window at some French lasses. He looks back at his mates and says, "J'ai deux amis, aussi, by an odd coincidence. Par un bizarre coincidence, or something, oui?" Yeah. Or something is right, Tantivy. The word "coincidence" is the paranoiac's least accepted rationale. Nothing is coincidence. Which, when you're writing situations for characters in a novel, is ultimately true. Obviously nothing that happens to Slothrop or any of the others is a coincidence! As a writer, you can't actually write coincidences! So a character in a book should be a paranoiac! What does that do to a novel like Gravity's Rainbow? Ultimately it's a book about a guy who is trying to discover why his life is the way that it is and who made it that way. It's not all random and while, yes, he's paranoid, he's ultimately correct to be paranoid. But this is a novel. Even if Pynchon wrote a book where Slothrop wasn't correct to be paranoid, how would that be any different? Because Slothrop is still, as a character being written into situations by an author, being manipulated by some greater Them. Does Gravity's Rainbow ultimately not work or is its inability to cope with coincidence and conspiracy the entire point?! Or maybe it's just that none of us have any real free will because we're ultimately slaves to our kinks and desires and anxieties which force us to make the decisions we make. Like not being able to not write Gravity's Rainbow. Ultimately, Pynchon's ability to not write this book was hampered by his needs and desires in absolutely the same way Brigadier Pudding can't help gulping down Katje's fecal emissions.
Slothrop decides to wear a Hawaiian shirt on their picnic with the French lasses because that's a fashion option now thanks to the war in the Pacific! Man, couldn't we have defeated the Japanese before American GIs decided to go all-in on Hawaiian tourist culture? Although I guess it gave boring suburban white people a way to show they were loosening up and really getting wild by wearing Hawaiian shirts and lighting tiki torches in their backyards. Plus now they could euphemistically serve hot dogs in pineapple rings as oer d'oeuvres. Très chic!
Slothrop begins to feel that maybe he doesn't have to feel paranoid. The day is too lovely. The picnic too sensual. The company divine. But then comes the moment where it will all change. It begins with Bloat pointing to a woman standing by the sea and outright asking Slothrop if she's a friend of his. A mistake. A huge mistake, Bloat. When trying to get somebody to witness a thing you've manipulated so that they'll witness it, you cannot be the one to point it out to them. You must let them discover it themselves or it will mar the entire manipulation. If Slothrop had witnessed this woman (and the subsequent attack by an octopus which I've yet to mention) without Bloat pointing it out, perhaps later, Slothrop would not have begun to dissect every part of the interaction. Like how did Bloat just happen to have the crab to drive the octopus away? And how did Bloat know exactly how to drive the octopus away in the first place? And how come it was Bloat who pointed out the woman just before the attack anyway? And what was that thing that was said back at the hotel about coincidences?!
My friends and I used to go messing around in the Santa Cruz hills at night, hiking and junk. We eventually found an old abandoned set of buildings up there, unguarded. So we concocted a plan to take one of our other friends who didn't know about it up there where we would stumble upon a Satanic ritual. Some of our friends dressed up in black robes and set up candles and painted arcane symbols around one of the abandoned rooms. The plan was to have our friend, Bon Rowman, stumble upon it as we searched around the abandoned complex. But one friend, Bason Jeymer (our only actor friend, by the way!), took it upon himself to lead Bon Rowman to the building with the ritual, discover the Satanic ritual himself and then called Bon over in hushed words. "Bon! Bon! Come look at this! What's going on?!" As if it were nothing! As opposed to having Bon lead the way, stumble into the ritual, and be completely freaked out! As soon as Bason calmly called him over to check it out, the prank was ruined. Bon didn't buy it for a second. Anyway, that's the experiential veneer through which I interpreted this scene!
As Slothrop watches, Katje is attacked by the octopus which Pointsman trained to be enamored of Katje. Slothrop fails to save Katje until Bloat produces a crab and explains the octopus is just hungry. Slothrop uses the crab to lure the octopus away and Katje is saved.
Slothrop immediately becomes suspicious. Between Bloat having the crab and Katje's ID bracelet and one of the dancers speaking to the just-saved-from-the-octopus Katje in some language other than French, Slothrop can't help but be consumed by paranoia. Something isn't right here and he's right to think it isn't.
"So it is here, grouped on the beach with strangers, that voices begin to take on a touch of metal, each word a hard-edged clap, and the light, though as bright as before, is less able to illuminate . . . it's a Puritan reflex of seeking other orders behind the visible, also known as paranoia, filtering in. Pale lines of force whir in the sea air . . . pacts sworn to in rooms since shelled back to their plan views, not quite by accident of war, suggest themselves. Oh, that was no 'found' crab, Ace—no random octopus or girl, uh-uh. Structure and detail come later, but the conniving around him now he feels instantly, in his heart."
Subtly, during the rest of the picnic, Ghislaine, the woman who seems most associated with Bloat, gives off clues that Bloat is the master behind some grand manipulation here. And on the way back to the Casino, she nearly states it outright, suggesting the octopus was staged and that Slothrop should be very careful. Her revelation gives me goosebumps so I imagine it made Slothrop shit his pants. And then Katje tells Slothrop she thinks they were maybe destined to meet and that's it. Paranoid Level Alpha. His entire life's a set-up and, well, it's come to this . . . whatever this is!
Are you not doing GR write ups anymore? I was enjoying reading em (I'm reading GR for the first time now)
ReplyDeleteI'm still doing them. Just slowly. I wanted to inject another book into my reading schedule for a bit. It's been Gravity's Rainbow for some months now and I figured, while re-reading it, I could throw in something a bit easier like Vonnegut.
ReplyDelete