Today, we learn that X is a person who passes blame, sometimes without even having to do it himself. On page 25, we learn that X is the driver of one of the vehicles involved in the car crash alluded to earlier. He accuses the other driver of being at fault saying that he himself had the right-of-way and that the other driver was driving way too fast. This might be believable (and may even be true) except that this page falls among others that seem to characterize X as a person who is always shifting blame.
On page 24, Helga is being kissed (by X, no doubt) and is "unsure" of whether or not she will allow it or to fight it. But we don't get the impression that this is a decision about whether or not she likes it, but about whether or not she can "defend herself." This suggests that her passivity will allow X to convince himself, or at least argue to others, that whatever happens between he and Helga was consensual--that she was a willing participant, even if she is only a willing "girl." To him, this will not be a rape but an affair.
Even when X is not purposefully trying to shift blame, others seem to take his blame upon themselves. On page 22, X has confessed to Dagmar, who pretends not to suffer. She takes a share of his crime on herself, feeling as though she is somehow an accomplice, perhaps only because she loves him. She tells X that just as she must forgive him for his faults, he also must forgive her for his faults. It seems that X will not ever have to take full blame for what he himself does.
Serendipitous Thematic Continuity
I have been surprised day to day how well pages I read in succession fit together thematically. The pages on day 1 seemed to center around the theme of small dramas occurring within larger historical dramas. Day 3 foreshadowed the consequences that are inevitably to come for X. The pages on day 4 seemed to all suggest a quality of flashback. And on day 5, we get three examples of X shifting blame to others.
The serendipitous thematic arrangement of these pages has made me wonder more than once if I have shuffled the pages well enough. Perhaps, I have failed to mix the pages up as much as I should and I am seeing some of the author's hand in organizing ideas.
But the fact that these themes seem to be divided perfectly according to day (one day, one theme) makes me think that something else is going on. Here is more evidence that my own brain, in its act of reading and interpreting, is providing its own continuity. The act of reading, then, involves taking possibly disparate pieces of information, and finding among them ways to connect them. Of course, if one follows my descriptions, one will probably see why I reasonably interpreted these pages the way I did--why I saw the themes that I say I saw. But how much of this is my own careful editing, my own picking and choosing information that seems to fit together into a coherent story while leaving the dross on the floor to be swept away.
This suggests that the reader has a great deal of agency, even if unknowingly, in interpreting any narrative. If the events of this story don't make any sense to one reader, it has as much to do with the reader's ability or inability to find and invent narrative threads as it does with the author's own virtuosity or clumsiness. Perhaps this is why we tend to see in any narrative what we are looking for. A Marxist will always see power relationships and class structure. A rhetorician will always see devices the author is using to convince the reader to believe or feel a particular way. So (and this is not news to anyone) we bring as much to the table as the author does.
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