GRGR(5) Katje and the Nazis

[Meg Larson]

Michael sed, in part:

As for the "judgment from which there is no
> > appeal," I always took this to mean death, I see no overt Holocaust
> > reference here.  The same with the "dark hotel," this could be almost
> > anything.  The "Ss" is coincidental, IMHO, and does not refer to the
> > Schutsstaffeln, it is merely descriptive.

Oh, to be such an expert on Pynchon to be able to make that last statement!
>
A-nd thinking about it in a Hitlerian context, it could be as overt a
Holocaust ref as it could be covert.  What awaited the deportees at the end
of that rail line?  It sure as hell wasn't a party in their honor.

It was death.  That's what was waiting.  That and nothing else.  And that
judgment was made without the deportees' assent/consent/knowledge--they were
sentenced, and there was no appeal process open to them.  If you can't see
how Doug can make that connection, then maybe we're not reading the same
book.

This is in no way a defense of Doug's position--he can defend hisself--but
once again, I trot out my standard position on _GR_--it's whatever the hell
you want it to mean, within reason ("back it up textually, and I'll buy it,"
as a wise old prof once told me).  There's nothing in this novel--or this
novelist--that says there is a central issue, a core meaning--it's the
issues in aggregate that we have to look at.  Well, at least this reader
does.  This is one case where it may well be the forest and not the trees.

Off the muscle for now,
M.