GR translation: What did I make of him?

[alice wellintown]

Not sure, but I suspect that the question pertains to Enzian and that
the musing here on what was made of him is not a matter of what
Blicero thought at first sight or even thought, but what he made
(mentored, fashioned) or how he influenced Enzian.

There is lots of irony in the fact that the white man's notion about a
true god, one that organizes and destroys, is credited to the african
religion, that is, corrupted and perverted when things fall apart as
the christians drive into the heart of darkness.

In any event, we may need to go back at least two paragraphs. The
paragraph that precedes the question in question, as Paul notes, is
quite difficult to make sense of.

 In fact, looking at the comprehensive studies of the novel, and at
the very focused ones, those focused on color, mandelas, language,
religion, Rilke, and so on, we can see that these passages have given
scholars much to chew on.

Again, though I don't agree with everything in the source book by S.
Weisenburger or with Fowler, these two do provide a starting point
from whcih we can begin to make sense of P's use of time.

SW investigates time, dates, anachronisms, analepsis, circles, shapes,
mandellas etc. So his study is helpful to translators, not only
because it provides sources for additional study, both sources that P
consulted and secondary sources, but because it tries to make sense of
what often seems to be a palimpsest ms, but what is in fact beautiful,
if at times, raw and over-written, even purple prose stuffed with P's
readings of dozens of books.

Here, we have Blicero's realization that true gods are destroyers and
organizers; this realization occurs in sw Africa when Blicero has his
own conquest (20 years after the conquest of the Herero) there and
learns from Enzian, whose religion has been perverted by chrisitan
missionaries, that his own upbringing in christian ambiance, now
altered by his journey south, across the line, and through the pages
of Rilke, has, like Enzian's, been perverted or better,  is a
perversion.

Blicero then takes the Herero lad as his night flower and, taking the
part of the missionaries, the boy is infatuated with the white man's
power lust and his use of language, cages Enzian's religion with
language. Blicero, now, understands this, and wonders what it, and his
relationship with Enzian, has made of Enzian.

Or something like that .....