Dear Cyndy,

As always, I have no choice but to write down what's
on my mind in real time, because for better or worse,
an hour later, it will have been displaced. 
Procrastination would wipe the slate clean and leave
me with no thoughts at all. 

You commented on my style. The notes to which I send 
you URL's, when they are prefixed with "d" are nominal
diary entries, not addressed to anyone in particular,
but written to record for possible later reconsideration,
thoughts that have just occurred to me. Notes prefixed
with "f" are drafts for pages in the novel, when prefixed
with "e", they are revisions of such drafts in English.
Notes with the suffix ".html" are formatted versions for
posting on my website.

When I write to you, I strive to be aware of your thoughts
and feelings, to the extent that I understand, and I try
to formulate my thoughts so as not to embarrass or offend
you. I often find it difficult to make myself clear. It
may or may not be the experiences of my Protestant (Lutheran)
childhood, that caused my protagonist Jonathan Mengs,
in Chapter 1 of Die Andere, to declare that with his emphasis
on the Word (of God), Martin Luther turned religion into
the study of literature and turned the study of literature
into a religion. That in retrospect has proved to be
my experience and suggests an answer to your question, for
whom am I writing my novels?  My novels are addressed to the
journal club of the Angels, who, as I understand, to inhibit
global warming, no longer incinerate unwanted submissions
but have them recycled.

Of the two Biblical references in my recent notes, one,
Chapter 53 of Isaiah, was to the Bible; the other John 18:37,
to the New Testament. I've never had occasion to parody Isaiah's
verses. I conclude from them that our efforts to distinguish
good from evil are often, if not always, unsuccessful. cf
http://home.earthlink.net/~ernstmeyer/andere/E07.html
So far as the trial of Jesus described by St. John is concerned,
I would point out, first of all, that if he was not a lawyer,
St. John certainly thinks, - and writes - like one, with much
attention to detail and circumstances, and recurrent citations
of precedent and prior decisions. (If you were interested, I
could elaborate.) I think this trial has universal significance.
It not only permits, it requires to be parodied. There's
something amiss with the reader, believer or infidel, who
finds it necessary, in order to be spared confrontation with
its truth, to embalm that trial in sanctimonious piety.

From the perspective not of Religion but of Literature, the 
imperative to the Christian to be "Christlike", to "imitate"
Christ, or in German to "follow" him (nachfolgen), seems to
me utterly compelling as dialectic: because this imperative
is universally ignored, because from Il Papa on down, they do,
all of them, do exactly the opposite. I've stumbled on the
metaphor of the optical illusion, the trick picture, (Vexierbild)
which is interpreted by the brain, now to conceal, now to reveal
an embedded reality, as relevant not only to the ethical 
perception that bad=good, but also to the theological puzzle
that man=god. If I'm not mistaken, the Quakers have been
for centuries, discovering "that of God in every man."

It strikes me that if I want to depict Katenus as emblem and
example of ultimate humanity, I cannot avoid subjecting him
to the humiliation or exaltation of his appearance as
innocent/guilty in a conceptual (quasi-optical) illusion
(Vexierbild) of his own. I must cast him in a Passion Play,
even if on first thought, Liar Island is remote from Oberammergau.
On second thought, the distance may not be so great.

Jochen