GRGR(5) Enzian

[rj]

Jeremy asks about the narrative entrance of Enzian:

> > "The Herero boy, long-tormented by missionaries into a fear of Christian
> > sins, jackal-ghosts, potent European strand-wolves, pursuing him,
> > seeking to feed on his soul, the precious worm that lived along his
> > backbone, now tried to cage his old gods, snare them in words, give them
> > away, savage, paralyzed, to this scholarly white who seemed so in love
> > with language." (99.26)
> >
> A well timed post! I was reading that very passage this morning and thinking
> about perhaps writing in with some questions -- your post inspires me to go
> for it.
> 
> I wondered about the passage: Do you reckon "Christian
> sins, jackal-ghosts, potent European strand-wolves, pursuing him,
> seeking to feed on his soul, the precious worm that lived along his
> backbone" is a list of things that Enzian fears? And, is this sentence
> Enzian's version or Weissman's? Or some third party's?

I think the pronoun "he" is implied throughout the passage, but I also
think that narrative agency is privy to Enzian's thoughts: he strove to
"cage his old gods", Weissman "seemed" like a scholar and lover of words
(i.e. to Enzian). (One of the critics uses the term "filtering" to
describe the way narrative in Pynchon works through the characters. This
is a useful analogy, I think.) The jackal-ghosts and strand wolves are
what the Christian missionaries' teachings have mutated to in the boy's
imagination, mixing in with his own culturally-acquired fears and
legends, perhaps. The "precious worm ... along his backbone" seems like
it might be part of some tribal animist or creation myth, one which he
has been forced to suppress. (I.e. the Christian teachings are "seeking
to feed on" the worm, a symbol of the living heart and soul of Herero
culture and beliefs.) 

But Pynchon also balances this image with one in an earlier passage
about Gottfried's "docile spine" which Blicero calls the "Rome-Berlin
Axis". (94.28) And it is at this point Katje thinks of a "mathematical
function that will expand for her bloom-like into a power series with
*no general term*, endlessly, darkly, though never completely by
surprise." The accumulation of analogic connections Katje then makes
(using the + sign) connects the Italian's ejaculation of "Padre Ignacio"
with the Spanish Inquisition, Catholic confessional, Teutonic myths,
Blicero's witch-paranoia and transvestitism. Again, she *doesn't*
connect it to the Jewish genocide at this point (or ever). But she does
seem to be expressing a recognition that such cruelty and oppression are
an ongoing characteristic of human history, both at a personal domestic
level and on a national and global scale, and that perhaps in all cases
it is a basic trait of human nature for the victims to, if not want
outright, at least expect and accept their punishment as due.

I think Pynchon is keen to show that the 'civilized' culture and
mythography of the Europeans is just as 'primitive', irrational, and
perhaps more debauched and dishonest, than Enzian's simple "blasphemy"
that fucking and God are one and the same thing.

best