Pynchon list

[Gillies, Lindsay]

Harold writes:
"The film also illuminated an interesting facet of GR:  I can't think of a 
single
book or movie about or set in WWII that doesn't mention Hitler...except GR.
Hitler is part of the faceless Them, I guess.  He's irrelevant to the motion 
of
individuals through history."

Don writes:
"I don't think AH is de-emphasized because of the "motion of individuals" 
but
on the contrary is finally just a symptom and means of the larger forces of
Death at work in the world."

Hitler is an implicit presence, not just because we're talking about 
WW2...In a sense you run into him working back from the rocket.  The rocket 
is a grasping for a miracle (weapon) to end the war in his favor.  It is 
situated inside a larger (miraculous) effort of "one man" to overcome the 
world, east and west, to transcend the death of Wilhelmine Germany and of 
the trenches of the First War.  I wouldn't agree that Hitler is part of the 
faceless Them---but it is the obliquenss of his presence is a curious point. 
 What would be the strategy in not refering to him?  Surely is absence in a 
direct way is not simply a result of other aesthetic decisions.

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Lindsay Gillies                           FMR Corp.
lindsay.gillies at fmr.com         82 Devonshire Street, R22A
617-563-5363                              Boston, MA 02109
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