GRGR (17) - The State of Peoplelessness

[David Morris]

>From: Michael Perez
>David wrote:
>>"Slothrop knows he is alone, has no people.  In this he is much like
>>Enzian and the Zone Hereros: dislocation and thus free-agency.[snip]
>
>First, we should remember that Enzian is only HALF Herero, so he is
>without a people all his own.  He is "Otyikondo, the Half-breed."
>[316.28-9]  It is also made clear that he and Andreas Orukambe do not
>agree on how to proceed with their journey, spiritual or otherwise.

Enzian is not yet what I'd call free, either, because he has bought in to 
the Rocket mysticism, again very much like Slothrop.  He has chosen a path 
set before him by Blicero, his "father."  Slothrop's father, too, set him on 
the path of the Rocket, but Slothrop was not given a choice.

The difference of spiritual paths between Enzian and Andreas is a sharp one. 
  Andreas repudiates the European death-culture by "quitting the game."

>Slothrop is without his people, if he could be said to have any, but he
>was actually among his people as a stranger, if we remember he
>retracing the colonial path taken by William Slothrop back to England.

Yes, unlike the Hereros, Slothrop is surrounded by his cultural heritage, 
but as he discovers its evil nature he is further and further alienated from 
it, "displaced" as you say.

>The displaced person self-identification can be compounded, and is, I
>believe many times, in this book, by the characters feelings of being
>alone among what are supposed to be their own people.  In this sense,
>Enzian and Tyrone are very similar.  By the way, where are all the
>Germans? (rhetorical) Even Saure Bummer and Margherita Erdmann are
>strangers in their own lands.  It seems that the zones have
>reestablished the wilderness.

These last two you cite are very different cases.  Saure is ever the Zone 
black-marketeer.  He was never in the mainstream.  In the Zone those guys 
seem right at home.  Margherita is a extreme product of the "evil empire."  
She has physically aged and spiritually decomposed, and her decadent Germany 
crumbled, but she exudes nostalgia for the old days, thus she is spiritually 
still attached to "her people."

But I could be wrong...
David Morris
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