into the oven: ch summary 94-116

[Mark Kohut]

Just "Jesus H. Holy Shit": ...is the part after the opening, of course an
echo with mushrooms of the banana cooking scene.... I mean Katje and
Gottfried,  THE MOST scary in all of GR? One of the most anyway. Every time
I try to read it, my sensibility hurts.....bloody lips and tongue and so
much more...(vocalizing the text makes me feel like Bloody Chiclets)

On Wed, Jun 15, 2016 at 9:52 AM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:

> Here is my working chapter summary. This chapter is a doozy so let me know
> if you think something should be added or subtracted.
>
> ++++++++14  94-116
> Katje- from Katerina-from Greek saint Aikaterinē; Greek name probably from
> Hecate( Goddess of underworld, death, witchcraft) later Greek adj.
> Katharos came to mean pure. (neither camera nor P tells us which(  witch or
> pure spirit) is more apt)
> Weissmann- White man, wise man;  Dominus- lord, dominate;   Blicero- Bliss
> Zero, bliss hero. bliss ero (herero)
> Gottfried-possible roots: 1) geut- to pour(molten metal) tribes who are
> pourers of metal, forgers of men 2) god- god or good  frid - peace,
> protection
>
> Beautiful, slender, athletic blonde woman named Katje enters banana house
> to find Osbie Feel(?) preparing amanita mushrooms like cookies in oven, she
> stares into oven and oven stimulates memories of her sexual servitude
> together with her homosexual compatriot Gottfried, both under Blicero's
> command. Blicero is the head of Nazi  rocket program. Their relations are
> compared to hansel(Gottfried) gretel ( Katje) and the witch( witch,
> cannibal, predator, sorcerer)(Blicero)  she dreams of shoving blicero into
> the kinderoven,and somewhere we slip into the memories and musings of
> Blicero, musings about Rilke's duino elegies with focus on the flame( the
> oven) which he longs for, his fears of Katje's betrayal,  and memories of
> his time in Southwest Africa amid hereroes, particularly of his native
> lover. He thinks of his longing for the oven which he refers to as his
> Destiny ( If the oven represents the power base of the militarized(friends
> vs enemies)  state, does that conception imply a natural gravitation to
> extinction?) He is sorry for the children ( soldiers, believers,followers)
> who see the possibility of freedom in the flame/oven/triumph of
> will/extinction-of-enemies . His will is waning and only his sexual
> addictions and their realness of skin, pleasure, and pain keeps him going
> toward his destiny.
>
> WhiteMan/ Weissmann/ Dominus Blicero's love of language(elegies) is a kind
> of Abulafian Kabbalistic belief in the magic powers of words and ritual
> incantation to become a messianic vessel of divine light, his role
> seemingly to be one of judgement and annihilation. ( Is he a god or is he a
> superman who has overthrown God and is bored, empty, ready to overthrow
> man?)
>
> This idea is reinforced by memory of Herero Lover who wants to fuck while
> invoking (blaspheming in B's words) the Holy Name ( the Herero name for
> God).  We move into the mind of Gottfried, foolishly thinking he is
> magically protected as Hansel in story, being conditioned (similar to
> Slothrop) ex: word bitch in certain tone is stimulus, erection conditioned
> response. chapter full of such Pavlovian arrangements. Gottfried is focused
> on Katje's escape which leads us back to Katje in Banana house speaking
> with PP. Katje's flight  disgusts dutch agent (Wim)she wonders if what she
> has done has any value to redeem her or at least to trade on the war
> market. (quote about war as markets pg 107)PP wonders why no info on
> location of rocket launches, house in woods, wonders if he knows Katje,
> recalls meeting by windmill( important image, repeated later) called The
> Angel. PP offers K asylum in White Visitation. Conversation OsF and PP PP
> says sometimes a person just quits the game, perhaps so with Katje. Katje
> says she's not PP's responsibility; PP disagrees. She feels blood desire to
> join inseparable, we find her forbear was Van Der Groov who killed Dodoe
> birds on Mauritius, a dutch colony that only lasted one lifetime but wiped
> out dodoes and ebony trees, colonists crazed with guns, acting like god but
> disappearing like preterite. FransVDG considers Dodoes' lack of language by
> which to colonize/co-opt, imagines miracle of Dodoes gathered in
> sacramental thanks, redeemed by the word. PP and O F( smoking amanita
> cigs)  sit on roof of banana house watching sunset on Thames below, ask
> about K; PP says someone can use her in WV. In WV film is being shot by
> Gerhard Goll of fake schwartzcommando troop activities. At day’s end
> projector goes down to show film of Katje to Grigori the Octopus.
>
>  key to below)  f=  plausible fiction( invented narrative that is
> physically and historically possible) h= history( known historic
> characters, events, places)  m= mythic/magic (events that are physically
> implausible as realism or presented more as myth than real)
>
> This preceding chapter, long and dark, has a nested russian doll
> structure; we are inside authorial narrative( h),  insideKatje (f), inside
> a film of Katje( f,f) who is inside banana boy soldier spy house(f),inside
> psychedelic oven(f,h), inside magic witches hut(m)inside Blicero(f), inside
> real rocket site(h)inside duino elegies(m,h,f) inside real war with  real
> holocaust ovens(h) inside fictive colonial history(f,h,m),inside  real
> colonial history(h)inside the memories of Gottfried(f) and back inside
> Katje's immediate role in the unfolding story where she meets with Pirate
> Prentice whose agent she appears to be?, inside Gravity's Rainbow (m,h,f).
> " …bigger fishes to bite'm…and so ad infinitum.”   Part of the layering is
> to emphasize what is unknowable by measurement/observation/film.-
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>
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