Somewhat NP Argentinians bound for Germany

[Dave Monroe]

... and, to complete the set, here would be the most recent entry in the
discussion ...

>From: Dave Monroe <monroe at mpm.edu>
>To: jbor <jbor at bigpond.com>
>Subject: Re: Somewhat NP Argentinians bound for Germany
>Date: Sun, Aug 6, 2000, 5:43 PM
>

> ... not sure just what you are reading as "glib" and/or "judgmental,"
much
less
> "superior," here

the excerpt I cited

> in particular, what am I allegedly "judging" here?

certainly you were offering your judgement on millison's and my motives,

meanings, attitudes

> Am actually trying to work out just how a bit
> of annotation in re: that Argentinian submarine escalated into a
dispute over
> which injustices, which atrocities are more germane to a discussion of

Gravity's
> Rainbow, is all, and am (still) curious as to why bringing up the
Holocaust,
the
> Shoah, would be such a flashpoint here.

It's actually quite a simple thing to read back over a particular
thread.

millison posted this

>  This has probably come up on Pynchon-L before, but a friend of mine
>  said something to me today that makes me wonder if the U-boat full of

>  Argentinian anarchists headed towards the Zone might be, among other
>  things, Pynchon's comment on the ratline that carried Nazis from
>  Germany to safety in Argentina and other South American countries.

I responded thus

> I don't think that the anarchists who have "hijacked" (383.23) the
U-boat in
> the novel are pro-Nazi at all. They are headed for the Zone, and von
Goll's
> Directorship of their anarchist Argentine movie-state based on *Martin

> Fierro*. Perhaps the Toiletship Rucksichtslos might be more fertile
ground
> for such a (shitty) thesis?

millison repeated himself, cropping my post, and making out that what
I'd
written hadn't made sense

> At 8:10 AM +1000 8/4/00, jbor wrote:
>>They are headed for the Zone, and von Goll's
>
> millison:
>>Argentinian anarchists headed towards the Zone

> As I said, this sub full of Argentinian anarchists heading for the
> Zone may be Pynchon's  neat reversal of the subs full of Nazis headed
> for Argentina and other South American countries. An allusion to the
> ratline that brought Nazis, and rocket scientists, out of Germany at
> the end of the war.

I ignored this, and responded to jbf's post about argentina being at war

with germany in 1945, which was a response to kwp's comments about eva
peron, while also answering your call for the borges reference at the
same
time:

> Yes, the connections are a wee bit strained all around (Graciela Imago

> Portales = Evita? Is that what's being suggested?), and in my reading
> Pynchon isn't in the habit of perpetuating historical myth. There's so
much
> more intrinsic thematic and narrative substance in the Argentine
thread of
> *GR*, including the faux-Borges couplet (383.19) ... the idealisation
of the
> pampas ... the discussion of centralised govt vs provincial
> self-determination ("gaucho-anarchism") and Graciela's wonderful joke
about
> Felipe as the "Gaucho Bakunin" being "more like a Gaucho Marx"
(386.21) ...
> To regard it as a mere excuse to "comment" on some mythical "ratline"
> diminishes its significance, owes a little too much to such
> Hollywoodisations as 'Boys from Brazil', for mine anyway. Wernher von
Braun
> went to the US, not Rio de la Plata ...
>
> As I said, the Rucksichtslos might provide far more fertile ground for
such
> (olfactory) speculation anyway, that is, if sniffing out Nazis is
one's
> thang.

millison took *three words* out of this post and used them to accuse me
of
being a neo-Nazi & Holocaust-denier (yet again)

>>some mythical "ratline"
>
> See Martin A. Lee's _The Beast Reawakens_ for a good, contemporary
> investigation of the international neo-Nazi movement and its debt to
> the very real ratline that rescued Nazis after WWII. What is gained
> by denying this bit of historical reality -- and the possibility that
> Pynchon alludes to it in GR --  is beyond me, although in the present
> situation it would seem to fit with a previous denial of Pynchon's
> very obvious depiction of Nazi crimes in GR. Which would seem a short
> distance to full-blown Holocaust denial.    A current trend in
> Pynchon studies, based on a quick perusal of the latest issue of
> Pynchon Notes, would instead seem to be a very careful appraisal of
> the ways that Pynchon uses the Holocaust in GR, and it seems to be
> broadly accepted that denying or minimizing Nazi crimes is not part
> of Pynchon's project. I can see how reading Pynchon in ways that tend
> to exculpate the Nazis might fit the current neo-Nazi project, which
> always seeks, quite desperately at times, scholarly endorsement and
> the trappings of academic respectability.

And then you start taking me to task for quoting "out of context"?! Can
you
see why I'm feeling a little bit badly done by in your characterisation
of
me as an "antagonist", or equally culpable of the sort of misquote,
insult,
ad hominem stuff that millison so frequently indulges in? I haven't left

anything out btw, but you can check the archives if you want:
http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0008
I don't normally rehash things like this -- but you have been asking.
Continually.

As to the rest of your post -- OK, that's the way you want to read the
novel
and that's fine. Despite the length of your reply you've chosen not to
answer the specific question I put to you regarding particular instances
of
anti-semitism depicted in *GR* however.

> well, again, why would the
> importance of the Holocaust as a context for the novel be apoint of
contention?
> At all?  As a matter of emphasis or otherwise?

Why are you *continually* misconstruing my comment that the episode in
the
novel dealing with the Argentine anarchists on board the hijacked sub
might
not be about the Holocaust? That was my point: that is what the subject
line
of this thread refers to. Is there some rule (in the text? on this list?
in
your mind?) which says that every single aspect of the novel must be
referenced back to the Holocaust?

> that there
> is a certain difficulty in commenting on, much less representing, so
atrocious
an
> atrocity.

Pynchon doesn't have a queasy stomach about anything much normally,
isn't
scared to call a spade a spade. So this theory doesn't hold much water
imo.

> ... and, of course, of the work of many commenting of the
possibilities and
> impossibilities of discussing, representing the Holocaust, precisely
in light
of
> its sublime

"sublime"?

> The Holocaust is, indeed, difficult, to say the least, to discuss, to
> represent, esp. ethically, responsibly.

Again, I would find it difficult to sustain the argument that Pynchon
hesitated on these grounds either, given the graphic nature of much else
in
the text. What did those Pulitzer judges say? ... "unreadable ...
overwritten ...   turgid ... obscene" ... And anyway, you've done a
total
backflip from saying that Pynchon foregrounds the Holocaust to
suggesting
his reluctance to address it is some form of awestruck and reverent
silence.
It's very inconsistent.

I'm actually waiting to hear your response to jody porter's post, which
is
more or less where I'm coming from on a lot of this stuff as well.