Captain Geoffrey Prentice (better known by his nickname of Pirate) is a major character in Thomas Pynchon's novel Gravity's Rainbow.
Character[]
An employee of the mysterious "Firm" and a Special Operations Executive, Pirate has empathic abilities. Specifically, he is able to feel the fantasies and dreams of other people.
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History[]
Though aware of having odd dreams before this, Pirate first gained definite proof of his empathic abilities after hearing a bum say words that he had first heard in a dream. Hoping to not have his abilities exploited, Pirate tried to hide them. In 1935, after feeling the waking fantasies of a soldier named H.A. Loaf, he was pressganged into serving the Firm.[1] Shortly after this, while stationed in the Middle East, he had a brief affair with a married woman.[2] One of his first jobs for the Firm was saving the world from the sentient and massive Adenoid of a servant of the Foreign Office named Lord Blatherard Osmo. Over two and a half years, Pirate gained the ability to communicate with the Adenoid[1].
Shortly before the events of Gravity's Rainbow, Pirate's associate Teddy Bloat sets himself up with ACHTUNG investigator Tyrone Slothrop due to a correlation between Slothrop's sexual conquests and V-2 crashes.
Gravity's Rainbow begins with one of Pirate's dreams, in which a V-2 rocket is fired from Peenemünde ("A screaming comes across the sky") toward a doomed 'crystal palace' in which Pirate and the rest of the 'Preterite' prepare for a fruitless train ride down a spiraling track to a 'judgment from which there is no appeal.' (This V2 is the same rocket, fired by Blicero and containing the innocent Göttfried, that will apparently transform into a nuclear missile landing on the readers' heads at the end of the novel.)
In Gravity's Rainbow, the first sight of Pirate is when his group of Special Operations Executives are holed up in a maisonette. Pirate took to growing bananas while in the maisonette. One day, after spotting a V-2 rocket that missed the maisonette, he is contacted by his mysterious employer. Pirate is sent to where the rocket crashed. While investigating the rocket, Pirate finds a cache of papers. Unbeknownst to Pirate, Slothrop is also present at this rocket crash. Shortly after this, Pirate meets with a Firm statistician named Roger Mexico (who is studying Slothrop) at a seance.
After this, Pirate largely vanishes from the narrative (though he is seen literally ejaculating a message using a compound known as "Kryptosam" and his maisonette is used by SHAEF to house Katje Borgesius). The next sighting of Pirate is while SHAEF is disintegrating. Pirate defects from the organization and helps Katje escape from their clutches. After meeting with Katje, the two become besotted with each other. He also helps Roger Mexico after he defects from the organization.
Near the end of Gravity's Rainbow, Pirate and Katje fly into "the Zone" (or Germany shortly after the War) using an old bomber. Shortly after landing, they are found by the "Schwartzkommandoes" - with Katje and Enzian (the de facto leader of the Schwartzkommandoes) discussing Blicero and their time spent with the Captain. While Katje and Pirate are still with the Schwartzkommandoes, they are attacked by an unseen force. It is unknown what happened to Pirate and Katje in this attack, though it is likely that they escaped.
Sources[]
| Works of Thomas Pynchon | ||
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Early works (Collected in Slow Learner) | ||