Enzian (Re: Daddy v. Buddha: Candy Drilled

[jbor]

It's the development of Enzian's character which is so inspired I think, and
true testimony to the novel's brilliance. First there is the spontaneity and
naive sensuality of the man-child (playlist addition: Neneh Cherry) in his
initial contact with Weissmann in Sudwest. The boy is so literal, so
innocent, so primal:

(On being christened Enzian) "Omuhona. . . . Look at me. I'm red, and brown
. . . *black*, omuhona. . . . " (101.13up)

Later on in the Zone when the boy has become prophet-Messiah for the
displaced Herero, Enzian of Bleicherode, he is continually brought down to
the day-to-day banalities of human politics: trying to keep the peace
amongst the various factions of the Schwarzkommando, already conscious of
his own necessary sacrifice and the need to groom a successor (as of the
vying for this role between Christian and Andreas, 731). But it his acute
self-consciousness, and his intimations that he is only human and not really
a Messiah at all, which undercut the Christ allegory inscribed in his story,
certainly for the reader as for Enzian himself (and which, ironically,
*enrich* the Christ myth). These doubts (and the Messiah complex itself) are
all part of the European "disease" which Enzian has acquired through being
Weissmann/Rilke's prodigy for those four years in Sudwest and then
afterwards in the Weimar (Rocket-)State, and it's a version of the same sort
of solipsism which afflicts Slothrop, Pokler, Tchitcherine et. al. The other
Zone Herero, even Ombindi, are in awe of their Nguarorerue because it is
only he who has been indoctrinated into the ways of the Western world, who
understands the secret powers and mysteries of the master race (the baby
Jesus Con Game et. al.), and so it is only he who can lead them to their new
tribal destiny (a destiny which no longer even exists, a phantom destiny; or
one which must be forged by motive force. In fact, it is a destiny which is
nothing more than the simulation of the death-wish mentality of the
oppressor culture.)

But Enzian is wracked by self-doubt and consciousness of self-delusion,
addled by drugs and frailty and his encroaching age (731.22-40: great
passage!). It seems he isn't going to be able to hold it all together, that
the Schwarzkommando Counterforce will fail...  Until that moment when he
acts, a sudden (last?) reversion to the instinctiveness of his youth, the
boy he once was rising in the man he has become, "Spaceman Smile turning
everything inside a mile radius to frozen ice cream colors NOW that we're
all in the mood, how about installing the battery covers *any*way, Djuro?"
(732.8up). And he removes Ombindi's people from the watch, and sets about to
assemble, shoot and *become* that 00001. This, and the non-meeting with
Tchitcherine, are very up sequences for me, liberating.

Enzian's perceptions, as the Schwarzkommando Oberst, like Pointsman's,
Pudding's and Weissmann's earlier, are an intricate study in the psyche of
the leader, the politics of control. That Pynchon projects this (essentially
human) urge beyond the narrow lens of imperialism and war is a measure of
the post-colonialist (and anti-nationalist) sensibility of his fiction.

(can't resist, it's just *such* a nice drive)
best



----------
>From: jp4321 at idt.net (jporter)
>To: Lycidas at worldnet.att.net
>Subject: Re: Daddy v. Buddha: Candy Drilled
>Date: Wed, Feb 2, 2000, 4:54 PM
>

> Terrence:
>
>> As for the GR characters, work or working it out is a death
>>trap, a suicide rap, you gotta get out while your young
>
> So why should we let them die in vain? We must work to make their
> pseudo-deaths meaningful.
>
>>cause the infection moves all around you, even in your fairy
>>tales and lullabies. In terms of interpreting history,
>>another trap, a death trap. Enzian is the courageous one
>>here and characters can't lay back and enjoy it, but the
>>mindlessly pleasured ones, like the courageous Bodine or the
>>Geli's Tripping can actively enjoy it.
>
> I've become slitely bored with politically correct interpretations of
> Enzian and his band of rocket gypsies. Likewise, I'd never allow my
> Porsche, if I had one, to be liberated for "the cause." If I did have one,
> however, I'd nick it "the schwarz car" not Bruno. (Pointy, of course, would
> prefer a shag)

snip

>>
>> >Have the courage of
>> >Enzian.
>>
>> You forgot the question mark on that one, so I'll assume it to be either a
>> declaration, or, a rhetorical question. Either way, I'm white, so I guess
>> not.
>
> Enzian's courage is not a black man's courage.