Historical Entropy

[Fakhereddine Berrada]

I agree with steely that one should read against Pynchon crit. in his use
of Wiener. I think P. uses it rather ambivalently and offers another
vision of promise and renewal. This is what led me to read GR as what I
have called a "recyclopedic" narrative with the stress not only on the
obvious ecological concerns of the book but also on the fact that his
W.A.S.T.E.  or wasted characters are the carriers and courriers of this
promise. It is interesting, on the other hand, that one of the major
characters who represents this promise is Enzian and his people. Once this
point is made, and if it is accepted, then the connection can be made to
the nazi issue under discussion here. Because of Enzian's background (even
his western name is an example of Western epistemic violence) the nazi
"aberration" becomes only an other instance of a Western imperial vision
that characterizes the so-called "Enlightenment project": the "other" is a
threat that must be assimislated or annihilated. I suggest to GR readers
to try and approach the novel as a critique of Western ethnocentrism, as a
debunking of whiteness in its most racial and cultural sense. Or is this
so bloody obvious it needs no mentioning? FB