GRGR(30): Rehearsal

[Paul Mackin]

On Sun, 25 Jun 2000, Jeremy Osner wrote:

> The conversation between Katje and Enzian has the feeling of being
> scripted and unspontaneous -- overtly so. Look at the line, on p. 659,
> "It isn't yet time to touch her" -- communicates a fatalistic sense,
> later on it will be time to touch her. And on the next page, Enzian "has
> often imagined the coming of a Questioner." He has rehearsed a
> justification for his identity.
> 
> I have internalized, from whence I know not, the notion that this
> behavior is morbid -- is this a Pynchonism?
> 
> All the text on 660-61, from "'What *can* Blicero matter to you?' is
> what she finally asks." to E's reply "'Yes he matters to me, very
> much.'" is E's rehearsal -- at least I think it is. There's a little
> ambiguity introduced by the line, "He is a lion, this man, ego-mad --
> but despite everything, Katje likes him." Somehow Katje has inserted
> herself into E's psychic stage.

The hesitancies that each party exhibits may result from the fact that
they are trying to sort out a fairly complex emotional polygon (as opposed
to a mere triangle) composed of Katje, Enzian, Blicero, Slothrop, possibly 
Gottfried Pirate, even Pointsman) and don't quite know how to proceed.
Of course despite all efforts not much resolution is obtained.

I think the 'not yet time to touch her' might merely mean that they
haven't yet made enough progress in the sorting out things to make it yet
time for the usual friendly goodbye touch. Or it could be related to the
suggestion of a flirtation as the end of the chapter.

The mention two times by Enzian that Katje's story is the saddest of all
made my brain immediately think of the first line of _The Good Soldier_.
"It was the saddest story I have ever heard." Probably no connection. Yet
that book also involved a complex emotional polygon and the sorting out of
it by the narrator was every bit as hesitant as was Katje's and Enzian's.

One could spend days trying to figure this chapter out.

			P.