A Pynchonian perspective on faith in the Resurrection (was Re: NP? Czeslaw Milosz

[jbor]

And just by the way, I thought the excerpt from Milosz's essay posted
yesterday was beautifully-written, and a quite beautiful expression of the
writer's Christian faith, though I'm not sure how it was supposed to relate
to Pynchon or his work.

The excerpt addressing Enzian in GR is also beautifully-written,
exemplifying as it does the way that "the Rhenish missionary society [...]
corrupted the boy" (100) by buggering his mind with the romantic myth of
Jesus rising from the dead. As a result of that initial molestation
(psychological rather than physical, a colonisation of the mind) the young
Enzian accepts Weissmann as the embodiment of Christ, his personal Saviour.
I think the final sentence in the passage below (NB "he", not "He") refers
to Blicero, not Jesus. While mistaking Enzian's conversion to Christianity
with the accident which "saves" him from the fate met by his mother and the
other Herero refugees causes the other Zone-Herero to revere him (his "Herod
myth" 323), Enzian's Christian faith is represented as a mixed blessing (at
the very least) in the novel.

best



on 17/8/02 1:12 AM, jbor at jbor at bigpond.com wrote:

> At night down here, very often lately, Enzian will wake for no reason. Was
> it really Him, pierced Jesus, who came to lean over you? The white
> faggot's-dream body, the slender legs and soft gold European eyes . . . did
> you catch a glimpse of olive cock under the ragged loincloth, did you want
> to reach to lick at the sweat of his rough, his wooden bondage? Where is he,
> what part of our Zone tonight, damn him to the knob of that nervous imperial
> staff. . . . (GR 324)