GRGR(5) some questions on pp. 92-113

[David Morris]

>Rilke's notion of "Change" represents the inevitable
>loss of the war (from the vantage of 1944?) and the
>Allied Occupation of Germany for Blicero, does it? (97 passim)

For Blicero, I think the "Change" means a form of transcendence, i.e.. death
& annihilation, like the moth to the flame.

>Blicero hypothesises a non-existent black counterpart
>to Katje, "a genius of meta-solutions -- knocking over
>the chessboard, shooting the referee". (102.12) More images
>of subversion (of broken rules and ruined games, of moving
>outside of the prevailing system, the frame, of the 'game'
>or 'frame' of reading as well?) Do these operate reflexively
>in the text, just as a good postmodern novel w/should?

Blicero is in love with symmetry.  The black female Blicero hypothesizes
isn't "non-existent," just someone Blicero failed to meet.  But the
implication is that he missed out, should have met her, because her
counterpart, Katje, has left the game, thus balancing the absent black girl.
That a female has the power to throw his game out of balance is significant,
as his game is a formalization of male domination.

>Who are "Piet, Wim, the Drummer, the Indian"? (104-5) I read
>this section as the Dutch Resistance fighters [snip] The
>"lives invested ... three Jewish families sent east" implies
>that Katje has been responsible for sending three Jewish
>families to a concentration camp, doesn't it? To their
>inevitable deaths? In full knowledge of this fact?

Yes, along with Piet, Wim, etc. but their lives were an "investment," again
in parlance of currency, and thus expendable.


>The image of Frans and the dodo egg as a Vermeer (109) is
>one of the most chilling and vivid in the novel, up there
>with the skating Zouave. Why does Frans leave it to hatch?

Frans has a moment of conscience.  While he contemplates the egg he hears
the unintelligible, but Dutch-accented, voices of all the dead dodoes, angry
and scolding.  These voices and his fantasy of the conversion of the  dodoe
are evidence of his overwhelming guilt, transforming him into the "crazy
Dutchman."

Sometimes it's a good thing to be passed over, preterite,
or is it? (Who'd want to be the *last* one?)

To be "passed over" was a good thing in its original meaning.  The Passover
is a celebration of the final plague God sent to Egypt, where the Angel of
Death was sent to take the firstborn male of every house, except the houses
whose doors were marked with the blood of the sacrificed lamb.  Those houses
he "passed over."  The use of this term to denote the preterite is very
ironic.