GRGR(6) - The DECD: the Holocaust

[Terrance F. Flaherty]

David Morris wrote:

> (118.10)  the Mills bomb [...] It is unspeakably awful.  Slothrop's head
> begins to reel with camphor fumes, his eyes are running, his tongue's a
> hopeless holocaust.
>
> See?  Millison's RIGHT!  It IS about the Holocaust!  Extermination by candy,
> oh, the horror!!!

Not THE Holocaust. Holocaust, hopeless, silent holocaust. Hey, there is a war
(crusade) going on, we don't want people to lose Faith. Disgusting!


rj ends his post:

The only differences in all of these pairings: Captain Blicero/Captain
Prentice, Katje/Slothrop, Katje/Frans' hogs; is the extent to which each
individual is aware of the consequences of their wartime occupations,
and to what purposes their 'unique talents' are actually being put.


Yes, and likeing or not likeing K reminds me of similar discussions concerning
Frenesi Gates
during VLVL. We can look at some of these characters in triangles. Brock has his
unholy
triangle--the family, and it seems not a bad idea to consider some GR characters
in triangles.
We might consider Blicero first. Blicero is rather like Conrad's Kurtz. One
major difference is
that with Blicero, we get his rationalizations for participating and we watch
him participate in
"unspeakable rites." Blicero in is love. Romantically in love with death and
extinction and he
directs his sadistic routine against the war and in the end seeks the solace of
a "Deathkingdom."
Blicero is in hate. He hates "this cycle of infection and death." His contempt
for life is so
powerful that he "wants to be taken in love" and love for Blicero is  reversed
and turned
inward as mockery. His solopsistic drive for the finality of death is directed
at others
characters in the triangle, for example, he seeks to obliterate Gottfried. We
could look at Polker.
Weissman, Polker remarks: is "less diabolical than harrassed as any civil
servant under
pressure," but Blicero is "the Zones worst spectre." The intangible, abstract,
bureacracy,
rational by design, is directed towards the irrational, solopsistic-- a
Deathkingdom.

Terrance