Now for a look at his Soul, ethnic and family background, and relation to his
country, we must examine the position and aspects of the Moon. The Moon is in
its own sign of Cancer in the Tenth House, the opposite house of the Moon,
indicating a direct blood-link to his ancestors on both sides, to all ten
generations of male Slothrops (each seeing the
Hand of God
) and to family witch Amy Sprue on his mother’s side. Cancer itself is the
predominant sign of the family, heritage, and ones own ethnic national
background. Placed in its opposite Tenth House this combination can, and does
in Slothrop’s case, imply
exile,
finding no abode in his home country, banned and dispersed in the ZONE in
early Virgo 1945, the year of
reaper
Saturn’s transit through Cancer harvesting DP’s of all nationalities
and plucking Albatross feathers along the way [360, 623].
The Cancer Moon shows a dominant attachment to the mother (definitely a
“mama’s boy”) and easily coming under the influence of women, to
the point of seeking the influence of woman. Women of all ages, from children
to grandmothers, were his greatest protectors, yet he built no home for them,
provided little else than physical (dis)comfort and a
bureaucracy of departure
[470-1]. Furthermore, there is a stellium in Cancer at the upper rim of the
Bucket-figure
with jovial Jupiter and pernicious Pluto in direct conjunction with motherly
Moon. Although primarily being a double Virgo this unique Cancer stellium at
the upper rim of the
bucket-figure
endows Slothrop physically with his clawlike appendages, a crabwalk and
stomach troubles [677]. In esoteric astrology Cancer rules Africa and the
Negroid
race. Through his childhood fantasy contact to Maximilian, his men’s room
initial encounter with Malcolm X, and his friendship to Enzian, Slothrop
redeems his own personal fear regarding the racial question in general. The
harmonious aspects between Cancer and Virgo evolve him beyond any innate latent
prejudices commonly associated with Virgo [63, 362, 675].
All major aspects to this Cancer stellium are favorable – three trines and
six sextiles – which normally would indicate moderate success following in
the footsteps of the family business. However, the house position is upside
down causing Pluto to stoop all the way to Hell and back – Pluto’s
own domain! He was “contracted,” bargained away for his future
education, sold as an infant by his very own father. This Heaven & Hell family
cycle is completed and Slothrop discovers the secrets and mysteries of this
paternal deal for his soul. Yet unable to get back home, a cross himself,
fragmented, hopefully finding grace and salvation (the most promising attribute
of Jupiter’s
exaltation
in Cancer), he leaves a living legacy on the Zone’s present-day
population, and most likely a few
offshoots
too [742]!
The Zone is now reunited with the Homeland and is beginning to become the 21st
Century’s major center of waste-paper recycling. Purely speculative, but
exactly when (and if) Slothrop reincarnated (if actually deceased!) is still an
undetermined factor. His soul could have been released at the “Fall of the
Wall” in the Autumn of 1989 under the unusual 497 year triple-conjunction
cycle of bonded Saturn in alignment with liberating Uranus and transcendental
Neptune in Capricorn – in direct opposition to his native Cancer stellium
of the Moon, Pluto and Jupiter (Neptune-Pluto being the astral plane,
Uranus-Jupiter the release, and Saturn-Moon the timing).
Slothrop’s extensive amorous and erotic adventures, both real and
imaginary, are a compound chapter in themselves. Venus is the female planet,
the
Goddess,
of love and beauty, Mars is the male planet of sex and energy. At the moment
of his birth these two stood in direct conflict between Leo and Scorpio, two
fixed-signs
of will, power and obsession. From his Cancer Moon we learned about the
influence and sympathy of women in general in his life; their attraction to,
affinity towards and protection of him. Women could feel, sense his
unpretentious nature and provided him with food, clothing and shelter, rescue,
escape, and refuge … love and sex as well. Definitely, as Slothrop
believed, women do have the antennas men do not [188].
Venus is remarkably – and paradoxically – positioned in the flashy,
flamboyant, dandy, and warmhearted sign of Leo in the Eleventh House, the house
of friends, leisure, special groups, and “hopes and expectations.”
Almost as if he were living in a fairy castle, he just puts on some fancy
flashy foolish fetish clothes and women of all ages, sizes, shapes, and walks
of life come running: WACs, nurses, secretaries, chorus girls, double agents,
witches, film stars, teenage Lolitas, farmer’s daughters, whores, and
aristocrats. What makes them do it for free [86], and just how many of these
women are real or solely products of his fantasy [271-72]? According to the
unusual position of Venus on this date, I would say ‘a little of
both,’ and confirm that at least he never bragged about it – a shy
guy too [22].
Slothrop’s
Goddess of Love,
a
Luciferian
Venus, in the glamorous and grandiose Olympian sign of Leo, is positioned at
the midpoint between dreamy, seductive-receptive, transcendental, dopey
Neptune, and restrictive, realistic, karmic-fatalistic, destiny shaping Saturn
– an exceptional and seldom cyclic Stellium in itself. Coincidently
enough, the last time this exact same constellation occurred was
August 31,
1595, and on that very date the Moon was also in Cancer and Mercury retrograde
in Virgo. This is either a grand coincidence, or Thomas Pynchon thoroughly
examined the Saturn-Neptune/Venus cycle!?
The qualities of Venus – love & peace,
The Muses
& culture, sympathy & compassion, pleasure & enjoyment, beauty & charm,
elegance & grace – are elevated to the higher octave of refined
extrasensory perception by the transcendental influence of Neptune, and from
the karmic influence of Saturn these same qualities are plunged to the clinical
depths of puritan isolation [85-86]. This is the classic, and fundamental,
astrological polarity between fantasy and reality, imagination and realization
– and that centered on his love life!
Pynchon does, however, describe in great detail, and with much background
information, the Pavlovian sexual conditioning of
Infant Tyrone.
We’re even told about the size of Infant T’s erection [84]. The
sexual/erotic characteristics of any nativity are symbolized, illustrated, and
embodied by the Zodiac sign, house position, and mutual aspects of Mars, the
counterpart or binary of Venus. In Slothrop’s nativity Mars, the male
sexual organ, is placed in its own sign, Scorpio, the sign, per se, of sex,
death, and rebirth. Furthermore, Mars is placed in the material Second House
(his own flesh & blood . . . “the penis he thought was his own,” a
rocket-dowsing tool [216-17]) and in direct conflict with Venus and the Leo
Stellium, the primary affliction of the chart.
Celestially, Mars and Venus are complementary opposites: war/peace,
beast/beauty, sex/love, cock/cunt, brutality/grace, on the one hand and
courage/cowardliness, strength/weakness, austere/vain, active/passive,
pioneering/compromising on the other hand. Together, Mars and Venus rule the
age phase 14-28, the years of puberty, sexual adolescence, and
falling in love.
One major question in
Gravity’s Rainbow
is if Tyrone ever really fell in love. Another relevant question could be if
he actually enjoyed his sexual escapades! The astrological tension, conflict,
and
affliction
between these two planets, the fundamental cosmic binary of love/sex, with
each on its own side of our planet Earth, says NO! Was
that
Slothrop’s (notorious) Fatal Flaw [676]? Was he, the original
Rocketman
, due to infant conditioning or not, incapable of truly falling in love, not
even mentioning the experience of genuine erotic pleasure? Once again, is
this
the
Fatal Flaw
of Tyrone Slothrop?!
In love and life, Slothrop sought
grace
(he even warned himself [213-14]), but, instead, found manipulation [216],
cruelty [396], and himself living as an unhappy loner [390] ultimately ending
his life as just “feeling natural” at the crossroads of himself
[625-26]. All this fits appropriately into his nativity, because Mars, in its
negative domicile of Scorpio, the sign of Sex and Death, dominates Venus, with
that in full distress. Not only is Venus afflicted, but Neptune, the higher
octave of Venus, is as well. The planet of illusions, seductive visionary
Neptune, in Leo in the 11th House, is a three-ring circus itself, bringing
about Slothrop’s costume theatricals, an endless line of unusual people
aiding and abetting him for free, and other weird companions and fantasy
figures channeling him onward and onward beyond any point of recognition:
“it’s just got too remote” [740-41].
Neptune further denotes the chemical, parapsychological, transcendental
conditioning and innate elements of his character, the lowest depths of
depravity, as well as his broken heart and no salvation (after fucking Bianca
[470-71]). In Slothrop’s nativity, Mars is both the “Lord &
Ruler” of death, placed in the sign of death. Regarding his death
(dissolution, dispersement), the afflicted aspect between Mars and Neptune
fulfills a prophecy: “dying a weird death, the object of life is to make
sure you die a weird death” [742]. Slothrop certainly dies a weird death,
yet, due to Neptune’s confusing uncertainty, we do not even know if he
actually died at all, or if he was transcendentally externalized in those
enchanting Harz mountains. Was this a postmodern “Soul wandering”,
vielleicht?!” Why, Tyrone would be
only
82 in 2000, two years short of a perfect astrological age cycle.
