GRGR(5) Enzian

[David Morris]

rj wrote:

>>> 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.)

>I guess what I was on about is: are these Enzian's thoughts? or Weissman's
>paternalistic belief that he knows what Enzian is thinking?

I'm beginning to think this passage is more Blicero than Enzian, or even
some third party "filter."  Blicero is contemplating his own transformation
in the Sudewest:  his own love for words, his own growing consciousness re.
a "true" god, "all sets of opposites,"  his passion & "romance" in the
desert w/ Enzian.  Enzian is described as the classic "noble savage,"  with
an uncorrupted purity, a black Adam, now being sullied by the missionaries
and Blicero himself.  Blicero ends this passage w/ "What did I make of him?"

The answer to that question might be "Gottfreid," where the "making" is
internal to Blicero, the fetishization of Enzian in Blicero's mind.