GR | Spoiler | Bilicero @ The Heath...

[Mark Kohut]

Nor me....Blicero is no Quixote.

Tore Rye Andersen <torerye at hotmail.com> wrote:  Thomas Eckhardt wrote:

>I see what Tore means by calling Blicero's quest quixotic, but the 
>association between Blicero and Quixote does not work for me.

and Bryan Snyder asked:

>I am not so educated about Don Quixote, so can someone give a 
>reason/thought
>about why Blicero's quest is quixotic? Does that mean that it's futile? Or
>Grand? Impossible?

Ultimately, Don Quixote's quest (and, I'd contend, Blicero's) is all of 
these things. Don Quixote lives in a fantasy world, a land of myth. After 
having read too many stories of knights, he decides to become a knight 
himself and to worship the incomparable Dulzinea (a plain peasant girl who 
in Don Quixote's fantasies is elevated to a beautiful noblelady). Throughout 
the novel, Don Quixote's impossible idealism is contrasted with the 
realistic pragmatism of his buddy Sancho Panza, who is always good for a 
skeptical comment as the Don goes tilting at windmills.
Like Don Quixote, Blicero lives in an unreal landscape, a land of myth. At 
one point in the novel, Greta recalls the gray furrows and red veins forming 
strange patterns in Blicero's eyes:

"Islands: clotted islands in the sea. Sometimes even the topographic lines, 
nested on a common point. 'It is the map of my Ur-Heimat,' imagine a shriek 
so quiet it's almost a whisper, 'the Kingdom of Lord Blicero. A white land.' 
I had a sudden understanding: he was seeing the world now in _mythical 
regions_: they had their maps, real mountains, rivers, and colors. It was 
not Germany he moved through. It was his own space. But he was taking _us_ 
along with him!" (GR, 486)

(A-and if James Wood doesn't find this scary, I imagine he's not easily 
spooked...). Just like Don Quixote, Blicero moves through "his own space" 
rather than the real world. Of course, this space is infinitely more scary 
than the fantasies of Don Quixote, and I'm not proposing that Blicero is 
merely a modern-day Don Quixote, but I think there are several analogies 
between their idealism. Blicero's quest - transcendence by rocket - is in a 
sense just as idealistic and just as impossible as Don Quixote's chivalrous 
quest.
My Webster's defines the adjective 'quixotic' thus: "idealistic and utterly 
impractical; esp.: marked by rash lofty romantic ideas or chivalrous action 
doomed to fail." And then 'imaginary' is mentioned as a synonym. Now, firing 
Gottfried off in the quintuple zero hardly constitutes 'chivalrous action', 
but I think it can be safely said that Blicero's launch is "idealistic and 
utterly impractical" and that it is "marked by rash lofty romantic ideas 
doomed to fail" (and fall). Blicero may not be Don Quixote, exactly, but 
perhaps he is Don Quixote's Evil Twin.
Interestingly, the Blicero/Weissmann of V. seemed much more earthbound 
(though no less evil): He was the one who reminded Mondaugen that "Die Welt 
is alles was der Fall ist" - the world is all that the case is. As he 
gradually moves into his own mythical landscape in GR, he seems to leave 
this world behind him.

On another note: In a novel as focused on 'theatre' as GR is, right from the 
first to the last page, it bears noticing that The Windmill was also a 
theatre in London (mentioned on p. 22 and 39). Weisenburger writes (among 
other things): "Through the Blitz, the Windmill was the one theater that 
never closed, its performers often sleeping overnight during the worst 
bomber, V-1 and V-2 attacks". The theatre-aspect of the Windmill-references 
seems to strengthen the association between windmills and the world of 
fantasy. This is not the same as saying that this association is the right 
or even the most important one - the association with mandalas, crosses, 
swastikas etc. is clearly at least as important - but I think that the 
Quixote/theatre-association is a part of this complex "metaphor of God knew 
how many parts."

A final note: Right after we learn that Thanatz sees a reflected windmill in 
Blicero's eyes, we hear that "doors at the sides of the windmill open and 
shut quickly, like loose shutters in a storm" (670). It seems that the focus 
here is not just on the abstract pattern of the turning 
spokes/cross/mandala/swastika, but on the concrete building itself, and the 
entrances to this building. So a relevant question here would be: why do the 
doors at the sides of the windmill open and shut quickly? Is there something 
inside, trying to get out, or someone outside trying to get in? Or is it 
just the wind?

Best,

Tore

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