Gravity's Rainbow - Part 1 - Chapter 15: Good Old British Cuisine

Analysis of Gravity's Rainbow, Part 1 - Chapter 15: The Disgusting English Candy Drill

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We saw Slothrop through the contents of his desk (Chapter 3), learned his family history in incredible depth (Chapter 4), saw him in a brief bout of drug induced hypnosis which led to his past in the Roseland Ballroom (Chapter 10), looked at Jamf’s experiments on him as well as how they’ve continued to haunt him (Chapter 13), and have heard many other characters discuss him and their desire to capture, control, or better understand him. But here, in the morning, stumbling out of that Sodium Amytal trip from Chapter 10, he walks along the streets of London, seemingly being followed. It is the first true time we get everything from his perspective. But why was he let go so soon? The group that let him go can use him better out here — study him better, at least — than they can in there.

The more Slothrop realizes he’s being followed, the more paranoid he becomes. Perhaps this could even be the point, for clearly, they have the ability to follow with far more subtlety than they are. And then everything in his life — “Things on his desk at ACHTUNG seem not to be where they were. Girls have found excuses not to keep appointments” (114) — begins to twist and turn. So, the coming events may not even be entirely brought about by chance: a woman, Darlene, a nurse from the same hospital which he was just released from, comes calling his name from the road. She lives with a Mrs. Quoad who seems to remember Slothrop’s visit long ago.

This remembrance does not seem entirely based in reality. Slothrop himself is confused, at first questioning the statement and then seeing images reassemble in his mind, building from wherever they may have been stored. . . though, maybe they are real. Slothrop’s sanity is being tested; reality and fiction are becoming a single entity in his mind, one indistinguishable from the other.

So it begins: The Disgusting English Candy Drill — an assault on the senses: “The English are kind of weird when it comes to the way things taste” (116). Slothrop is subjected to a series of blasphemous flavors on his palette: mixtures of mayonnaise and oranges, the most bitter herbal flavors one could fathom, mixtures of spice that should never have existed, surprise explosions from an awfully textured center, fumes that numb the senses. One can, as usual, and as one should, attempt to truly delve into the minutiae of what every event in the novel means. Though this time, it really is far simpler. First, it is just a remapping of the previous themes, showing that Slothrop’s paranoia is only being compounded by a series of these assaults on the senses. Or, at least, they are there to remove those inklings that all these events are set up. Also, it is a foreshadowing of the absurdity that is to come — those ridiculous moments which are imminent in Slothrop’s life, forcing us to ask if his future is similarly set up by the same groups who set these events up, or if they are other purely absurd points in his life with little or no meaning. It could even be a little joke at the expense of the English: this is the culture that we’re going to war for. Or just a last bit of fun for him, no matter how unpleasant.

Whatever it may mean though does not matter, for “with no warning, the room is full of noon, blinding white” (119). Another rocket has struck just outside their window as Slothrop and Darlene have fallen into post-coital sleep. And with the blast, “Slothrop’s penis has sprung erect” (120) once again. Knowing his previous condition via one Laszlo Jamf, we know the two events are intertwined. But is it the erection that called the rocket down, the rocket’s blast that signaled him erect, or are these two unrelated entirely, and will a new rocket sometime in the future fall on this exact space?

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Up Next: Part 1, Chapter 16.1

Thanks for dealing with my delay last week! This was a short chapter, but a fun one. It obviously has lots of meaning behind it, but this is also one that you should just enjoy for the incredible humor and comical writing that Pynchon excels at. It’s a laugh out loud chapter (until it’s not, which may be another point Pynchon is trying to make).

Next week is a big one. The biggest one yet in my opinion. It is easily one of the best in the novel, containing The War’s Evensong — probably a contender for the most beautiful passage in the English language. So it may take a couple weeks to tackle it all. Expect at least half of it done by next Sunday though!