GRGR(16): Jonathan Livingston Blobadjian

[rj]

Peter Petto
> I'm not sure one could draw the conclusion that "you get what you deserve" 
> from reading GR, but I'd enjoy hearing what people think is going on at the 
> top of page 355.
 
Blobadjian is assassinated as he flees the Arabists, perhaps by a
double-agent -- Radnichny? Dzaqyp/ the narrator? (so US slangy is the
dialogue) -- or by Tchitchy himself perhaps? And becomes a spirit-being?
"You get what you deserve" is a little bit harsh though -- after all, it
was only a glorified Scrabble game, and he was being set up anyway.
Another moment where humour conceals the darker substance of the
narrative I think.

I love the ironic understatement of the detached narrative voice right
after the description of all the "Hunchbacks, lepers, hebephrenics and
amputees" who have been left huddling in the "secret spaces" of Baku
after the European exploiters have raped the place and split:

"It is a period now in Baku of lull, retrenchment. All the oil money
taken out of these fields by the Nobels has gone into the Nobel Prizes."
(354.35)

That matter-of-fact sentence in itself probably rules him out for good,
I'd say.

best