Chasing ... Cutting

[jbor]

----------
From: "Terrance"
>

> The passage you note:  The
> question is asked about Kajte [97] but Blicero "up to a
> point" finds the English bombing "agony delightful."

I read it that he finds the agony of not knowing when and whether Katje will
betray them all "delightful", ... "up to a point":

   Will Katje feel her obligation canceled by someday calling down English
   fighter-bombers on this very house, her game's prison, though it mean
   death? (97.6)

She is the one whose predetermined role is to push him into the Oven. Her
"obligation" is to this game they have each agreed to play; but the
delightful agony for Blicero is not knowing whether she will break the rules
and destroy them all before the game is played out. It's a type of inverted
Schadenfreude, glib fatalism. Katje discerns the "nihilistic ... pleasure"
he seems to enjoy as the A4s misfire (96.24), "making them as much target as
launch site", too. Blicero is not *actively* an agent of death, however.
Even Gottfried is given the choice. (724.18)

>  Enzian says, he is "a fabulous monster" [660].

The progression "toad to prince, prince to fabulous monster" suggests the
opposite of what you want to imply. Enzian loved Blicero, of course, and
still reveres him, as a *god* (i.e. a "fabulous monster"): "Whatever
happened at the end, he has transcended." (660-1)

The sexual
> games are not domestic affairs for Weissmann/Blicero, they
> are solipsistic gnostic affairs, it's about HIS (TRP's
> italics) pain, HIS (TRP's italics) sin driven deep into
> Their province, into synthesis and control," [661].
>
> I'm curious, how do you account for the description on page
> 666 "at the top...." ???

Let's go back to the start of the sequence first.

The homosexual prison-camp inmates idolise Blicero; they have set up their
own nation in homage to his legend somewhere there in Usedom. (Or perhaps it
is further south, and that "empty town at the edge of the marsh" which
Thanatz stumbles into is actually the town of Police.)  Whichever, Blicero's
"name has found its way this far east", and his legend has become their
creed. Remember that the Nazis interred homosexuals along with all the other
"undesirables". But Blicero has flaunted his homosexuality openly,
referenced on several occasions in the text, and this has led to his renown
amongst these prisoners (and probably also been one reason for his slide
down the Nazi hierarchy.)

Schutzhaftlingsfuhrer: protective custody, guardianship, shelter, leader

This is how the 175s respond to the intrusion of Thanatz:

     "Nobody lives here but us." A solid figure, a whispering silhouette,
    charcoal-colored, has materialized in Thanatz's path. "We do not harm
    visitors. But it would be better if you took another way." (665.11 up)

Their code and motto -- Blicero's -- "We do not harm visitors."

The passage at 666.15 describes not Blicero the man, but Blicero "the name",
the idea, the myth. It is only "as if" the name is "carrying on the man's
retreat for him, past the last stand" -- (perhaps/probably) Blicero's last
stand -- on the Luneberg Heath.

"He is the Zone's worst specter."

A ghostly presence.

"He is malignant, he pervades the lengthening summer nights."

malignant adj. 3. [...] rapidly spreading (Collins)

"Like a cankered root he is changing, growing toward winter, growing whiter,
toward the idleness and the famine."

canker n. 3, an open wound in the stem of a tree or shrub, caused by injury
or parasites (Collins)

Seasonal change has come. He/it is "changing, growing toward winter", but
has not caused winter; he/it is not the bringer of "the idleness and the
famine".

Far enough?

Blicero is the *absent*, or symbolic, authority figure in the prisoners'
camp (667.9). His palpable presence across the ""interface"" of life and
'not-life' scares Thanatz shitless (668.7).

> How do you account for his reading of Rilke? It's entwined
> as an integral element of his oven game, the Oven State,
> and must be accounted for.

He read Rilke. He read it to his lover, Enzian, in Sudwest: taught him the
language, the culture.

Blicero is the character most venerated in the narrative.