GRGR(5) Katje and the Nazis

[Doug Millison]

At 1:39 PM -0400 7/10/99, MalignD at aol.com wrote:
>One could agree with much of what Millison is saying would he not be so
>insistent on the issue of what is "central."  I think, like him, the Jewish
>extermination is alluded to throughout the book; "alluded to," because it is
>not "central," at least as I would use the word.  The extermination isn't
>central to GR as it is to, say, the writing of Primo Levi or even to
>Schindler's List.  It strikes me that, had Pynchon made the extermination
>central, i.e., included scenes of death camp atrocities, it might have
>capsized and overwhelmled much of what is otherwise powerful and in balance.
>There is something horrible and shocking in the slaughter of the dodos, not
>only metaphorically, but on its own terms, and when the parallel to the
>holocaust strikes a reader, the shock and horror increases.  It's likely that
>that power would be mitigated if followed or preceded by scenes from Dachau
>or Treblinka.  (Too bad about the birds, but ...)

We could quibble about "central" but I've lost my appetite.  TRP's
certainly not writing _The White Hotel_ or TV docudrama.

Another reason why TRP couldn't make the Holocaust central to GR (in the
way the Malign One's using "central") is that would distract too much from
the more immediate political project of the novel, which is to criticize
U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War and the various distortions in the
psychic, social, and civic life of America (and the rest of the world) that
such involvement brings with it.  But that's another story altogether.

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