GRGR (17) - The State of Peoplelessness

[Michael Perez]

David wrote:
"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."

Exactly and I certainly didn't mean to imply that Enzian was by any
means free.  He hasn't been free from his beginning.  Slothrop is still
finding out the extent of his lack of freedom.  His assumption of
different personas, including Rocketman, are, perhaps, attempts to
escape the identity (like the penis) that was never his own.

Later David wrote:
"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.'"

Quite right, I believe.  It just seemed to me that there was a lack of
Germans in Germany at this point in the book, like there was a lack of
English in England at some points, with all the governments in exile,
etc. - remember the advent bit with Roger and Jessica being the English
people in the melting pot of the church.  Germany, after the vain and
evil attempts to "purify" it, has now become occupied by outside
powers. The only German characters (including the sprites that
bippity-bobbity-booed Slothrop's Rocketman gear) that are "visible" are
those who have lived outside the Germany of the recent past, as
reckoned in the book.  In the coming episodes we will see how others
will downplay their involvement with this disappearing Germany.


Michael
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