GRGR(15): Enzian of Bleichrode (was:Enzian, nihilism, ...)

[Terrance F. Flaherty]

David Morris wrote:
> 
> >From: Jeremy Osner
> >
> >What's up with Enzian's relationship with Weissman?
> 
> (314.33) "Enzian of Bleichrode"
> 
> This is a special title, distinguishing Enzian from his other identities.
> What does it mean?  Does this designate his new ancestry via Lord Blicero?
> Or is it geographic?  "Nordhausen/Bleichrode" here links the two: Death's
> realm and Master.  Enzian's been Motherless since before memory.  His new
> ancestry is male ,Blicero, and north, Death.
> 
> This section begins with a story akin to those in the Gospel where Jesus
> teaches his disciples a lesson.  The "white engineers" seek advice from E of
> B (the Black).  He points out their error:  Arrogance.  They rely on their
> equations.  Enzian advocates the empirical as revalation.  Thus we have a
> contrast of approaches to Truth which one might expect to be "pro" Vs.
> "anti" Rocket.  But here both are in the service of the Rocket.  These are
> complimentary pairs on the same side, not opposites.
> 
> What IS up with Enzian's relationship to Weissman?
> 
> ----------
> (100.23) What did I make of him?
> ----------
> 
> Blicero loved Enzian, so it seems from his remembrances.  The boy sought
> Blicero's love in a way so pure it sent shivers down his spine, especially
> with its "blasphemy": a turning of Blicero's world.
> 
> Later, Enzian's embrace of Weissman's world leaves him abandoned in the
> North.  His love was sacraficed to the Rocket.  But back in the Southland,
> Gottfried's later mirror image, red & brown to become yellow and blue,
> Enzian was all new, not cynical.  Was Weissman also so pure then?
> 
> Enzian changes.  He follows his Father.  In the process, Enzian grows cold,
> just as Slothrop grows numb.  Enzian is a typos of Slothrop.
> 
> --------
> (318.35)  As the Rocket grows toward its working shape and fullness, so does
> he evolve, himself, into a new configuration.  He feels it.  It's something
> else to worry about.  Late last night, among the blueprints, Christian and
> Mieczislav looked up, abruptly smiled, and fell silent.  A transparent
> reverance.  They study the drawings as if they were his own, and
> revelations.  This is not flattering to him.
> --------
> 
> Next comes the passages where we learn Enzian's goal.  This is a revelation
> to Us Readers.  Enzian seeks a Center.  The Origin and the End.  Is this
> also the Zero?  Has Enzian been polluted beyond redemption, or is he a
> Her(er)o, seeking out a true balance?
> 
> Probably the first.  Is Slothrop's pollution also beyond redemption?
> 
> David Morris
>


Enzian is going North and Slothrop is North--with Geli, he
is "on top of the Brocken, the very plexus of German evil."
Signs, ancestors, doubles of Katje too. This the fun house
shooting gallery mirrored world of GR. Put on your white
stetson and fire away Marvy and you may shoot a rocket and
blow us all up, liberated in the spirit from Dora, thanks
Yanks. You may shoot a witch in a white dress and how will
we all get Home to mother? Oh, don't be so quick to go
S.O.S.  and go on some evil rampage from the other side, No
evil is as evil does. The Brocken is not so evil here, is
it? It's seems a Natural place, more like Home, more alive
and Human than a plexus of modern evil--the Raketen Stadt.
Yes, it's a pre-Christian place, but can we crucify jesus in
the name of judas, even if he is a Con man on an April Fools
trip through the Western soul of evil disguises, voyeuristic
tourism and genocide? Ontop Brocken, Pagan instincts and
Titans, where the light magnifies the Human and Slothrop and
Geli become  "God_Shadows." What is the evil here? A natural
rivaling of the Christian god and those ice saints in the
North? The evil here is surely not the mechanical and
gigantic evil of the Mittlework, no. To worship the old gods
is not a technological act--Nazi idolatry. What's up there?
"The relics of the latest Black Sabbath." Hmm, "Kriegsbier
empties, spent rifle cartridges, Swastika-banners ripped red
satin, tattooing-needles and splashes of blue ink."
Detritius, yes, but after the war, go out buy a Harley and
have a pagan holiday, nothing evil here, right? Slothrop,
poor Harvard boy, he doesn't get it, he can not fathom these
reflections of witchcraft--don't they hang witches? And oh
the irony again, this witch is an ancestor--Amy Spruce. And
like Amy Spruce, Geli's witchcraft is free and open, an
openness that the Law, like that Argentine and American's,
can not abide, for it refuses to sequester the spirit.
Witchcraft here is Antinomianism--the persistent tendency of
the spirit away from codification and order, the perennial
suspicion that the Word is not the Letter. How do you know
she's a witch? She turned me into a newt, but I got better.
To be a witch, like Geli and Amy, is to suppose that one has
immediate relation to Nature--the godhead and so who needs
the interposition of authority, doctrine and law, Control?
Burn her, burn her, hang her like christ from a tree. If
there are no zones, is this a second coming ? Or is it pie
in the sky?