GRGR7: Almost keeping up

[Paul Mackin]

Desperately searching for something more to say in response to Chris's
excellent
questions. Something not already said, or in GR Companion, or in John's
dissertation.

7) Why is the fairytale Hansel and Gretel invoked?

>>>>>>Has it been mentioned that ovens are mouths? For example, in France
when
someone yawns they might say  "Quel four" (What an oven). Ovens have flames
(unless they are electric). Thus the oven ties Rilke's transforming flame
to Blicero's sexual
use of Gottfried's mouth. The captain strives for transfiguration or
transcendence through
his love slave. But it is only his PURPORTED intention  that the children 
be baked
into gingerbread. HE is the one to be TRANSFORMED. When Katje kicks over
the chessboard
(so to speak) the TRUE outcome (in keeping with the fairytale framing) is
postponed.
BUT IT WILL COME (it says somewhere). This knowledge will help us toward
the end
of the book . Maybe.

 
> 
>      18.)  "The happy couple!"
>      
>      Comments about Pirate's relationship with Katje?

>>>>>>This is sarcasm on the part of Osbie. Pirate doesn't want K and makes
excuses to
explain why he brought her out. Doesn't mind extra weight, not Katje's 110
lbs or
the bloody Mendoza's. Later Pirate's attitude toward Katje changes.
>      
>      p. 109
>      
>      19.)  "There they were, the silent egg and the crazy Dutchman, and
the 
>      hookgun that linked them forever, framed, brilliantly motionless as 
>      any Vermeer."
>      
>      This tableau-like image reminds again of the idea of God as both 
>      creator and destroyer.  B-but -- why else is the tale of the Dodo 
>      slaughter recounted?

>>>>>>>The Dodos are a nice counterexample to the prevalence of exchange
rates. The dodos have nothing to trade, are without utility, and so are
slaughtered.
In the more normal colonial situation the natives can mine gold or harvest
ebony or
serve as sex slaves. Thus their lives are ransomed (for a time) with the
coinage
available to them.


>      20.)  " [...] none less than Gerhardt Von Goll, once an intimate 
>      and still the equal of Lang, Pabst, Lubitsch."
>      
>      Gerhardt, here given some cachet, is another way to remind us of 
>      film.  Any comments, by the way, on Osbie's All-Time List?

>>>>>Mention of Bela Lugosi harks back to those Hungarian hand movements of
Rosy at the White Visitation a few episodes back.


>      22.)  " 'Indeed, as things were to develop.' writes noted film
critic 
>      Mitchell Prettyplace, 'one cannot argue much with his estimate,
though 
>      for vastly different reasons than Von Goll might have given or even 
>      from his peculiar vantage foreseen.' "
>      
>      This seemingly out-of-nowhere interjection, which occurs in this
portentous
>      episode's penultimate paragraph, is a good example of those moments
in GR 
>      where we are suddenly warped into the future.  The effect of this
narrative
>      gambit is to distance the text from its own primary narrative line
(which 
>      steadily attenuates during the novel anyway -- tricks like this
being one 
>      way that progress is effected).  This pattern of narrative helps to 
>      destabilize the novel's chronology, forcing the question "What is
the 
>      temporal locus of this book?"  This trope supports the idea that the

>      *present* in GR is not WW II Europe, but early 1970s USA. 
>      
>      Other comments about this passage?  How 'bout that Prettyplace?

>>>>>Leaves you wondering what VonGoll's peculiar vantage point was. I
picture early
directors perched high up on a stepladder mounted in the bed of a model A
(or T) 
pickup. Saw it that way in a movie I think. Griffith or somebody.

						P.