Flights

The narrator opens this section of fragments with a sentence she repeats with increasing frequency throughout the book: “Each of my pilgrimages aims at some other pilgrim” (122). She describes a trip to a wax anatomical exhibit in Vienna in which she views figures depicting various cross sections of the human body. The narrator then moves into a fictional tale of anatomist Dr. Blau, who seeks to inherit the anatomical collection of his idol, Professor Mole. Blau boards a plane to travel to the home of Professor Mole’s widow, Taina. He expresses his love of travel: “In fact, this was why he liked traveling so much—en route people are forced to be together physically, close to one another, as though the aim of travel were another traveler” (130).

Dr. Blau is a professor and academic who frequently seduces his young female students to photograph them nude. He keeps a collection of these photographs as a form of preservation; the doctor’s main goal in life is to create a collection of preserved body parts celebrating the human form’s individuality.

Blau’s interest in anatomy began when his father took him to Dresden’s Hygiene Museum; the “glass man” exhibit allowed Blau to look at the anatomical composition of a human.