GRGR Finale: "No return."

[jbor]

The point being made I think, with Enzian and Weissmann as with much else in
*GR*, is captured in these two simple words. There is "no return" for Enzian
to a faith in the tribal gods of the Herero people (323.28); there is "no
return" for America along that wrong path taken by the early Puritans; there
is "no return" for a world tainted by the extinction of the dodo, the
annihilation of the innocent citizens of Hiroshima; and, implicitly rather
than explicitly perhaps, but just as saliently, "no return" from the
genocide of the Jews during WW2.

There is "no return" to a prelapsarian state of grace, either, but that is
as much beside the point of *GR* as are James Bond, Madame Butterfly,
pedophilia and the number of actual women (as opposed to our friend Sybil, I
guess) who post to the p-list.

Part of the post-colonialist thrust of Pynchon's aesthetic resides in the
fact that his narrative *does* entertain the viewpoint of the victims and
descendants of colonialism rather than simply locating itself within the
coloniser's conscience. (I read a review just yesterday of a collection of
Chinua Achebe's essays where he apparently rips into Conrad for his
"racism": I'll post a link to it when it comes up on the site -- Otto, it's
something which might interest you in particular.) Enzian *is* a reliable
witness in the text in that he was *there*. He is and was at all times in
full possession of his faculties, both in Sudwest and in Germany, and he
understands exactly what is going on, what has been going on: the sexual
*and* the power dynamic between Weissmann and himself; the political (and
*religious*) context of the colonial occupation; what had actually happened
to his tribe, his mother; the utter randomness of his own survival; all of
it; with both clear-sightedness and intellectual sophistication. This is how
Pynchon characterises him. Enzian doesn't hate Weissmann, doesn't resent him
simply because he happens to be German, and white. This would be a form of
racism, wouldn't it? Certainly, it is a gut reaction which many refugees and
survivors of war *do* experience. (See, for example, *First They Killed My
Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers*, written by Loung Ung, who, as a
five year old girl, escaped the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia;
http://shop.barnesandnoble.com/bookSearch/isbnInquiry.asp?sourceid=000001067
71215645509&ISBN=0060193328&bfdate=09-11-2000+20:09:24
where the anger and bitterness occasionally burst through the generally calm
veneer of the recount.) But this is explicitly and emphatically *not* the
case with Enzian in *GR*.

In the novel Katje is depicted as equally insightful (that contretemps
between Katje and Enzian is *very* illuminating), Gottfried perhaps less so;
but they, also, were *there*. What is happening is happening *to them*. To
deny their experience; to contest their perceptions of that experience;
seems to me absurd. Enzian *is* convinced -- that's the whole point. He
*did* love, and *still loves* Blicero. As do Katje and Gottfried. I don't
understand why this is so hard to admit. Certainly, it's written in plain
English in the text.

I haven't suggested that Blicero is the "venerated hero" of the novel, of
course. This is millison clutching at straws. But he *is* the character most
venerated in the novel. I'm not sure what sort of measure is being used to
determine the relative extent of "psychological damage" which the various
characters have undergone -- sounds like something Pointy might be up for,
or Kevin Spectro (RIP) -- but what of Slothrop, Pirate, Pudding even, in
this regard? Not one character in the novel perceives Blicero as being
mentally unsound, let alone "crazy as a bedbug". The sacrifice of his
lover/son, Gottfried (God's Peace), is a vain grasp after redemption and
salvation -- for himself *and* for humanity perhaps -- which is modelled on
the story of the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Are we also to take it, then,
that the Christian God was "crazy as a bedbug"?

I think that what is being left for the reader to decide is the exact extent
to which "Weissmann/Blicero shares the guilt of his Nazi brethren for Nazi
war crimes". What "crimes" is Blicero personally responsible for? Which
Nazis are his "brethren"? Only textual references, please.

millison trots out the same old passages time and again, isolates them from
their context or just plain misreads them, flings about meaningless phrases
like "highly nuanced", "considerable ambiguity", "powerful polarizing
responses" and "hot button topic", and then condescendingly directs anyone
who disagrees with his sanctimonious moralising to go off and "get a grip"
on the supposed 'truth' by reading up on a topic which is totally unrelated
to the text at hand. I find this sort of maneuvre quite offensive: an insult
to any decent person's intelligence. It's not merely 'strange', as Mark
noted, it's a sign of desperation.


millison:
>> the tormented argument rj uses
etc