When Does Innocence End?

[Otto Sell]

I read all posts.

"Well, almost . . . "
(Mick Jagger, at: Bette Middler - Beast of Burden, 12 inch)

Weissmann: "He believes (...) in blasphemy" - and to be more precise: "like
the Rhenish Missionary Society who corrupted this boy." . . . Aren't we
necessarily to think further: "...believed in blasphemy."
For Weissmann it seems indisputable that the monks too "believed" in
blasphemy. In which?
Christianity was the corruption the monks committed, but what was the
blasphemy then?

"nor even a request." - "the boy wants to fuck" (100) - it's a proposal.
It's Enzian who initiates the situation. He has learned to like it and knows
that white males like it.
"why is Enzian's situation any different?" - I haven't been molested
literally, just metaphorically, corrupted. But this novel helps.

The boy says a blasphemy (according to Christian values) in using the
Herero-word for God for the act. Evidently it's no blasphemy for Enzian what
they're doing. But is this common Herero religion (as Terrance suggests)? Or
is it Enzian's belief that this is common religion? If Enzian has been
corrupted with Christianity how come that he's proposing such an act? To a
Baas! Because it's common for him, what he has learned from his folk what
Christianity means: being sodomized by that white folk that pretends to be
God's representatives down here.

"Of course it happened. Of course it didn't happen." ( GR 667) I think that
this goes for a lot of things in the novel.

>I can just see the Pulitzer judges choking on their paté.<

I wished they'd made a video. Guess the novel fitted to their expectation of
what to expect from those 'hippies' and alike.

Otto