BtZ42/11 - Kryptosam, Wuotan, Pirate as robot

[kelber at mindspring.com]

Episode 11 is one of the shortest (the shortest? I haven't gone through and counted) in the book. 

Summary: This is the first mention of IG Farben in the book, coupled with the second mention of Dr. Jamf. We learned in the earlier conversation between Pointsman and Spectro that Slothrop was previously one of Jamf's subjects. Now, via a brochure for one of IG Farben's dye products, we get a view of Jamf's focus - the marriage of the chemical and the psychosexual. Pirate, his psychosexual profile being accurately pegged by Them, is quickly able to decode the Kryptosam-inked message. He's being asked to step in and save an operative from a perilous situation.

Some specifics:

The Kryptosam pamphlet is the first explicit mention of the running theme connecting control, death and sexuality. Kind of an early rendering of "grab 'em by the balls and their hearts and minds will follow." Or liebestod, Nazi-industrialized. Pirate's orgasm - petit mort - is a necessary step in a military-industrial process.

That the hidden Kryptosam ink develops into a "Negro-brown" color seems an echoing of the Negro/shit paranoia of the Kenosha Kid episode. When we meet Katje some episodes later, she's wearing a dress in "a rich cocoa shade known as 'nigger' in this country [Britain]."

"They hunt the sky like Wuotan and his mad army." Wuotan and his wild hunt signifying death to those who see it (a folkloric concept most recently ripped off by Game of Thrones, in the form of the White Walkers). After the obscurities of the Kenosha Kid, this is a little heavy-handed, no?

"Pirate's own robot hands…" Pirate, having masturbated on command, has become a cog in the machine. His sexual kinks mapped with scientific precision - measured input creates the required output - Pointsman's dream subject. 

The chilling part of this episode is that it links IG Farben squarely with British intelligence. The operative - presumably Katje - wrote a message in Kryptosam. Was it made available to her by the Brits or was it readily available in Blicero's quarters?  Either way, British Intelligence knows all about it. In a sense, Kryptosam is the anti-W.A.S.T.E., an alternate form of communication, not for the preterite, but for Them.

One final question: Are we to assume that this message was contained in the cylinder retrieved at the bomb site by Pirate, right after his banana breakfast? If so, this episode is misplaced chronologically.

Laura


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