GRGR (15): Good & Evil (was Enzian...)

[Terrance F. Flaherty]

rj wrote:
> 
> David
> > An act we see as "evil" today might have seemed "normal" or even "good" when
> > it was done in the past.
> 
> Yes. This the crux. Why does Pynchon focus on the liberated Dora
> prisoners "rampage after the material" (296.15) three times in the
> narrative. Because *after* they were liberated these survivors once
> again enter the realm of (relative) freedom in the Zone, and the
> "normal", "human" values and morality must surely once again apply.

Why? Why must they apply in the ZONE? 


> Sure, we, Pynchon, Marvy, Glimpf and the rest (though maybe not
> Slothrop) know about the absolutely heinous acts that went on in Dora
> *prior to* the liberation, but *after* the liberation, in the context of
> Slothrop's safety, these liberated prisoners are as much a threat as
> Marvy's marauding Mothers (oh the irony), and just as debauched. And
> it's not only the context of time, but the individual human's
> perspective on events, which changes the moral, and actual, odds.

I agree, but the irony twists again, since we are in the
ZONE. This is the Zone of mindless pleasure, where these
folks can not know who is in trial at Nuremberg and WHY? A
true moral relativism exists in the zone, not in the book. 


> 
> It is really difficult for the reader to come to terms with this, I
> think. But I think Pynchon provides a parable at the beginning of the
> section, in that episode where Slothrop burns the hair ("Father said it
> belonged to a Russian Jewess") of the doll with lapis lazuli eyes, and
> then he waltzes with this little German girl, whose parents (Nazi, no
> doubt, and possibly even the Camp Commandant and his wife) and rather
> opulent home have obviously been destroyed in the Liberation. (282)
> Where is "evil" here? Pynchon seems to be asking. They dance in the
> darkness: no recognitions, no identity, no *history*. Slothrop must
> forego the light of the fire, the light of "reason", and (like the
> reader) embrace the demon in his arms. He learns.
> 
> best


I agree this is great, later we will be in a pie in the sky
cloud, but the reader is not Slothrop. Here in the zone
things are blurred, yes it is real difficult to come to
terms with, but, as Doug points out, it's not beyond the
book or the reader to find a moral center.