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/lit/ - Literature

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11225869 No.11225869 [Reply] [Original]

Reading Gravity's Rainbow and for the first time came across something i truly do not understand and can not find explanation for in any of the guide books.

I understand we're being properly introduced to Brigadier pudding through a flashback/memory-entry to his Ernest Hemingway-esque WWI Medical Officer father who suffered "ab-reactions" after being recovered in the ruins of the intense shelling of Belgium in Polygon Wood.

But what's this bit about the ginger-haired chap who slept with his hat on? Is this some sort of metaphor for the loss of true knowledge suffered through the infliction of PTSD (similar to the concept of "the reversal" mentioned previously regarding the bomb's blast sounding before the flash)? Is that a reach? Associating this one miscellaneous ginger/redhead with lost memory, fire on the brain? Or am I suppose to know who this is? It seemed odd and out of place.

I'm interested in others' thoughts. Here is the passage:

Old Brigadier Pudding can live with this spiritualist gang well enough, he's tendencies himself in that direction. But Ned Pointsman, with his constant scheming after more money—Pudding can only stare back at the man, try to be civil. Not as tall as his father, certainly not as wholesome looking. Father was M.O. in Thunder Prodd's regiment, caught a bit of shrapnel in the thigh at Polygon Wood, lay silent for seven hours before they, without a word before, in that mud, that terrible smell, in, yes Polygon Wood . . . or was that—who wasthe ginger -haired chap who slept with his hat on? ahhh, come back. Now Polygon Wood . . . but it's fluttering away. Fallen trees, dead, smooth gray, swirlinggrainoftreelikefrozensmoke ... ginger . . . thunder ... no use, no bleeding use, it's gone, another gone, another, oh dear . .

>> No.11225889

>>11225869
It sounds like it's written with PTSD in mind.

>> No.11225910

I think the redhead guy might have died and Pudding Sr. can't remember if all his memories of the incident were his own.
But yeah, it probably is somewhat of a metaphor.

>> No.11226056

bump

>> No.11226316

>>11226056
Have you read V? This character was introduced in V.

>> No.11226429

>>11226316
was this ginger-haired chap also a character?

>> No.11226617

>>11226429
Yeah, Benny Propane meets him on Malta.

>> No.11226693

Thats just how it goes no one knows what the hell is going on 80% of the time, 60% at best.

>> No.11226789

>>11225869
He's old