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/lit/ - Literature

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6813564 No.6813564 [Reply] [Original]

>Rocketman, Rocketman. You poor fucker.

I'm speechless, I finished it today and Slothrop's 'final' moments in the book are heart wrenching. It's almost as if he literally disintegrates into the background as the rocket takes centre stage, but there's always that lingering sense that he's somehow everywhere, its a sublime conclusion

>> No.6814678

That sounds like the most parroted opinion ever.

>> No.6815182

I understood Slothrop being disintegrated the same way Marty McFly did in the end of Back to The Future, but while Marty survived, Slothrop had no recourse.

Poor guy. I really fucking felt bad for him.

>> No.6815228

>>6813564
>>6815182
I hope you guys don't mean it literally, because it seemed to me that the whole ending (except the parts of Blicero and Gottfried) was Slothrop's mind disintegrating

>> No.6815247

>>6815228
No, not literally, but that's how himself and everyone saw him. His mind slowly fading away.

>> No.6815410

>>6815228
Literally, what happens is he hangs himself.

>> No.6815457

I didn't get it

>> No.6816033

>>6815457
Don't get what?

>> No.6816846

>>6814678
>he writes pretty well, it must be stolen
thanks

>>6815228
But that isn't true, or at least it certainly isn't the whole truth (if such a thing was even possible from Pynchon). There's all these little suggestive moments scattered throughout the final section - a harmonica here, a letter from Slothrop's mother there, etc. - which have no stylistic union or formula except for Slothrop himself, even after his 'disintegration'. If we're talking about the form of the text itself, I think it's safe to say that Slothrop, if we're talking about him as a literary device within the grander scheme of the text, he quite literally disintegrates into its structure.

>> No.6817270

>>6816033
What happened in the end.

>> No.6817330

>>6817270
The last scene goes back to the launch of the 00000, which lands on a theater in England and kills everyone in it. The concept of time is shaky by that point and we're sent off with a hymn by William Slothrop which references things from the future like the Zone and Tyrone's fate, things he couldn't have possibly known about since he lived in the 17th century.