Blicero the Badass

[jbor]

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>From: "Otto" <o.sell at telda.net>
>

> 
> I cannot help seeing big differences -given all the structural similarities
> you describe above- between a figure like King Ludd and W/B. And do "vigor"
> and "single-minded" really fit to the novel character?
> The notion of power, strength and force well, but what about the
> life-affirming aspects of the word - vitality, virility, health?

But Pynchon ues the term to refer to Ned's "assault" on those looms:

> > No doubt what people admired and mythologized him for was
> > the vigor and single-mindedness of his assault.

In other words, his was a really "vigorous" assault on those stocking
frames: he really smashed them up, destroyed them.

I think that the 175s have certainly mythologised Blicero into a Badass. If
you think for a moment about their context -- regular German citizens who
had suddenly been stripped of all status, persecuted, imprisoned, tortured,
killed -- then the fact that the survivors revere Blicero as their hero or
"local deity" when they set up their breakaway "state" is quite comparable
to the sort of thing which happened with the Luddites and Ned Ludd.

best