Chasing ... Cutting

[jbor]

----------
>From: "Terrance Flaherty" <lycidas2 at earthlink.net>
>
> 
> Yes, I posted it and I stand by it. I compared them with
> another group in the book, remember? Also, once again you
> cut out the most important (to you anyway) sentence, the one
> that says, NOT BECAUSE THEY ARE HOMOSEXUALS....

Yes but I don't quite see any distinction being made. What is implied in
your ellipsis: ... but because they are ... what ...?

No questions remain in my mind except those I've posed of you, and which you
haven't seen fit to address.

*******
>
>>  The second line  of the song clinches it, I think, and is a
>> statement of their humanity which  Blicero's "specter" has
>> given them a model for, and the strength to assert:
>>
>>       If *I'm* a degenerate, *so* are *you*. . . .
>>
>>  This is pretty close to Pynchon's sentiment on the issue, I
>> would imagine.
>
> Yes, I would imagine, but back to the text now.

Pardon me? The line from the song is in the text. You seem unwilling to
engage with the opening and closing paragraphs of the 175 camp sequence at
all. Why not?

> "WHo else COULD the 175s have
> chosen..." Sounds like they didn't have a chose, doesn't it,

No, it sounds like a rhetorical question to me.

> and besides they "choose" him "for their very highest
> oppressor." Oppressor?

oppress vb ... 3. to lie heavy on (the mind, imagination, etc.) ...
                                              [Collins]

> How can he be a model of their
> humanity and their "chosen" highest oppressor?

A benevolent despot, perhaps? A father-god?

> Also, "HIS
> POWER IS ABSOLUTE." What does that mean?

Like a god's.

But you are still misinterpreting, if not misrepresenting, the passage, and
the sequence within which it is enclosed, imo. It is not Blicero but
Blicero's **name** which is pervading this post-war autumn. Blicero isn't
there in the 175s camp at all. Furthermore, these men never even saw Blicero
while they were in Dora, let alone experienced or even really knew what sort
of management style he maintained in the Mittelwerke. It is the *mystique*
of Blicero, this openly homosexual Nazi Major whom the SS guards at Dora
were so in awe of, which they have idolised:

     "We think he's out there," the town spokesman is telling Thanatz,
     alive and on the run. Now and then we hear something -- it could fit
     Blicero easily enough. So we wait. He will find us. He has a
     prefabricated power base here, waiting for him." (667.9)

>  Blicero may
> be venerated by the characters that have been infected by
> his power and absolute domination and charisma

A question for you, then. In respect to those characters who do venerate
Blicero -- Enzian, Katje, Gottfried, the 175s -- what is the source of
Blicero's power and charisma? As far as I can see in each and every instance
these characters have chosen freely to love, respect, honour, and/or revere
this man.

> but Enzian
> is venerated by the Author,

Enzian is a sympathetic figure, certainly. I wouldn't say he is put on a
pedestal above any other of the putative saviours, however. But I agree that
he is depicted positively, humanised, as are most if not nearly all of the
major characters in the text. Marvy being an/the exception, of course.