GRGR(5) Katje, Blicero, Enzian, Gottfried, Pirate, Katje

[rj]

Katje Borgesius

Katje -- catch ya

Borgesius -- Borges, Borgia, Bor-jesus

Yes, I agree that the post-1973 reader thinks instantly of the Holocaust
when the oven is first mentioned, and all through this episode and all
through this novel. Of course we do. How could we not? Over 70% of the
narrative occurs in Nazi Germany and the Occupied Territories during
WWII.

But what I'm quite surprised by is the fact that Katje *doesn't* make
the connection at all. Her perspective on Der Kinderofen is a selfish
one, the Hansel and Gretel story alone:

"Their Captain allows no doubt as to which, brother or sister, really is
maidservant, and which fattening goose." (96.2)

Blicero does appear to make the connection, however:

"So his Destiny is the Oven: while the strayed children, who never knew,
who change nothing but uniforms and cards of identity, will survive and
prosper long before his gases and cinders, his chimney departure."
(98-99)

Not only this, it is he who conjectures about Katje's loyalty to the
Party, but "her record" with Mussert's puppet regime is more than a mere
opinion I think. The very fact that she has "smelled out" the "three
crypto-Jewish families" makes me doubt that she isn't aware of the fate
awaiting them. 

The parallels with Pointsman are all in place, as Blicero, a "true god
... both organizer and destroyer" ponders the fates of his "children".
(99)

Blicero reveres Rilke (surely an endearing quality to Pynchon? to the
reader?) and he was "[b]rought up into a Christian ambience". (99.23)
That "into" is very important for me. Just as is the introduction of
Enzian right after:

"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)

Christianity and the imposition of an imperial language are the root
causes of cultural genocide isolated here (as elsewhere) by Pynchon.
(C.f. Frans re. the dodoes: <"Alas, their tragedy is to be the dominant
form of Life on Mauritius, but incapable of speech." ... No language
meant no chance of co-opting them into what their round and flaxen
invaders were calling Salvation.> 110) 

The Grimm fairy tales (Hansel and Gretel, William Tell) and Wagnerian
Norse myths (Siegfried) that Katje, Blicero and Gottfried 'play' at are
the positive/negative, black/white counterparts to the tribal mythos and
pantheon Enzian and the Herero have lost. 

Gottfried doesn't betray Katje (104.17); she has been used by Blicero to
keep the boy in a constant state of heat, just as Pointy will use her
with Pud, and Grigori, and then Slothrop. Both Gottfried and Pirate
project and hope that Katje has "quit the game"(104.17, 107.19), which
is where we were headed with the question about Katje's status as a
professional or non-professional, as a victim or vile temptress; but,
the narrative asks and answers this one for us, and is definite in its
ambiguity:

"Indeed, why did she leave SchuBstelle 3. We are never told why."
(107.11)

best