Chasing ... Cutting

[Terrance Flaherty]

OK, If you want to we can discuss your statement: "Blicero
is the character most venerated in the narrative."


1. Why is Marvy the exception to the no good guy bad guy
reading you propose? 

2. Why do the Dora homosexuals experience their freedom as
banishment rather than liberation? 





jbor wrote:
> 
> ----------
> 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. 

Yes, that's true. 

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. 

I read it differently, but we will need to include her role
in Blicero's reading of Rilke, critical here, so I'll table
this for now. 


> 
> >  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)

Yes, a fabulous monster revered as a god by Enzian, now
that's a big problem isn't it? He has transcended, that's a
big problem too. Where to? What is the other side, what is
it like over there, when one has transcended? There is no
good and evil over there, scares Geli shitless too. There is
no sex over there, no sexual games. We will have to come
back to this idea too, it is very important that we
understand how the two sides of the wall are connected and
how things differ on each side. 

> 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.)


What evidence is there of this? His homosexuality is the
reason for his slide? Where is this? Also, could be another
reason why they choose him, not their homosexuality but
their need to be imprisoned, controlled. There freedom is a
banishment not because they are homosexuals.  
> 
> 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."

Again? 


> 
> 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.

No, good try but the text puts them together, like this
"Weissmann/Blicero"


> 
> "He is the Zone's worst specter."

Worst ghost. Worst!
> 
> A ghostly presence.
> 
> "He is malignant, he pervades the lengthening summer nights."
> 
> malignant adj. 3. [...] rapidly spreading (Collins)

No, this would not follow, he is malignant in this sense or
metastasized, but he melignant:ma·lig·nant (m
-l¹g“n
nt)
adj. 1. Showing great malevolence; disposed to do evil. 2.
Highly injurious; pernicious. 3. Pathology. a. Threatening
to life; virulent: a malignant disease. b. Tending to
metastasize; cancerous. Used of a tumor. --ma·lig“nant·ly
adv.
> 
> "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)

No, obviously that not it. 
> 
> 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?

No, this is lame obfuscation on your part and I think you
know it. 


> 
> 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).

Yes, the interface is what? 


> 
> > 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.

Why will you admit to all sorts of complexity but deny that
TRP's use of Rilke in GR is very complicated. It's a
critical part of the text you refuse to account for. Why? 



> 
> Blicero is the character most venerated in the narrative.