Homophobia in GR? (1.Weissmann/Blicero & Rilke)

[Otto Sell]

Mirror-metaphysics

jbor wrote:
> Enzian overcomes all those binary oppositions. But it isn't orgasm that
>gets him there. It's *existence* -- being.
>
> best

That's it! He hasn't been really corrupted by Weissmann and alike, only from
a "Western" view. Deciding, drawing the line means to fall on one of the
sides. I guess Pynchon wants to keep us "bouncing," "oscillating" - allow no
fixed meanings and "final solutions" - like being itself, an ongoing process
of interaction with the environment.

>the old Christian lie of good and evil<

This could have said by Weissmann too:
"He believes, like the Rhenish Missionary Society who corrupted this boy, in
blasphemy." (100)

The lie is older than this. It includes Christianity and Colonialism, but
goes beyond it. That Enzian hasn't been infected more deeply speaks for him.
For him it's no blasphemy. Why should it? His belief and deep feeling of
being alive is true. But using God's name for the act here means (too) that
he has been raped by the missionaries and has learned taking sex for
experiencing God. But it's no excuse for Weissmann that he wasn't the first,
he remains a molaster even if the boy wants "it" - the witch, a monster.

"but to the boy NK is what happens when they couple." (100)
"what happens" - visualize it - from childhood days on, replacing the true
belief with the real person, "in his innocence" (100) taking the monk that
rapes him for God - sex, being molasted by adults, becomes worshipping God.
Turn this around, leave the sex out and you get a metaphorical "worshipping
God is being molasted by adults." No doubt about that this is really true.
And it goes for nearly every religion. This is how his wonderful postmodern
novel deconstructs religion.

Enzian is a real hero, the most classical hero in the "literal" sense of the
word, fulfilling some of  the "hero-prerequisites" John Barth names more or
less:
"(...) if we allow the criteria to be read more or less metaphorically,
Jesus and General MacArthur both come off respectably well (...)"
4.The circumstances of his conception are unusual, and (Russian father and
white half-brother)
5. He is also reputed to be the son of a god. (Ndjambi Karunga's child, p.
100)
6. At birth an attempt is made on his life, (...) but (von Trotha)
7. He is spirited away, and
8. Reared by foster parents in a far country. (322-323)
9. We are told nothing of his childhood, but
10. On reaching manhood he returns or goes to his future kingdom.

"We're *all* God's children, speaking literally or figuratively. Our mommies
and daddies are all kings and queens we shall have to replace, and our
conceptions were extraordinary because they engendered the uniqueness of
each of us. We all bear the scars of infant traumas. (...) undergo the
ordeals and humiliations of adolescence, lose our innocence, prove our
manhood or womanhood (...) found our little dynasties, do our little work,
pass our climacterics, and become the ogres whom our children must depose.
Then naked we return whence naked we came, to the bosom of god or of
nothingness - and what can any man tell his children, finally, or leave
behind for them? Et cetera - you get the idea."

("Mystery and Tragedy: The Twin Motions of Ritual Heroism", in *The Friday
Book*, 1984, 1997, p. 41-54, esp. 43-45, 47)

Otto
ps what's going on in Melbourne. I get sick of seeing cops beating up
peaceful
people.