Crownshaw's PN article

[Dave Monroe]

... pardon me, ev'rybody, seems that someone is running a little offlist
interference whilst the postings on this topic just keep a-comin' in.  Me, I'm only
able to get to this intermittently at best, so ... well, briefly, Pynchon's
characters are not Pynchon, nor are they any of us "here," on this list.  Pardon any
confusion there, I figured it would be obvious who I was referring to, as there are
no doubt several of Pynchon's chracters who exploit and/or make light of the
Holocaust.  Gravity's Rainbow 'deals with" the Holocaust at LEAST each and every
time it (a) mentions it explicitly, or (b) alludes to it nigh-unto-unavoidably
(although you seem to be performing a veritable Hollywood carchase when it comes to
evasion here) via references to, say, Nazis, Nazi weaponry, Nazi industries, Nazi
science, er, did I mention Nazis?  The kind you might find--as Pynchon does--in
Germany ca. WWII?  I would again recommend a reading of Dale Carter's The Final
Frontier: The Rise and Fall of the American Rocket State here, on what he refers to,
after Pynchon, as a transition from the German "Oven State" to the American "Rocket
State," as well as at least a perusall of current critical literature on the
problematics of representing the Holocaust (again, Saul Friedlander, ed. Proing the
Limits of Representation).  Esp. if one wants to pursue Pynchon exegesis, if one
considers oneself to be pursuing it, professionally, or,. at least, responsibly (the
latter for me, if not the former).  For starters ...

For starters ...

jbor wrote:

> monroe:
>
> > I don't see Pynchon, or anyone here, for that matter, as in any way
> exploiting,
> > much less making light of, the Holocaust.
>
> Pynchon's character --  "Oily Micro" -- is definitely making a tidy profit
> from it on p. 296. He seems to be doing both the things mentioned.
>
> > Indeed, I think it is precisely
> > because of such concerns that Gravity's Rainbow often deals with it obliquely,
> > tangentially, allusively, whatever, precisley in order not to exploit it for,
> > say, pathos, gravity, even, much elss to reduce it to the often comical,
> > farcical, ludicrous, even, goings on.
>
> More or less agree. I think I'd like a bit more elaboration of "deals with
> it" here, from your standpoint, however. The phrase seems to have a sort of
> oxymoronic relationship to the three adjectives with which it has been
> juxtaposed.
>
> > Cf. Hiroshima, which also not only looms
> > over the novel--that apocalyptic, intercontinentally ballistic sword of
> Damocles
> > hanging over the end of the novel, a novel which begins with an (ironic, to
> say
> > the least, in context, in just about any context one can provide for it)
> > epigraph from Nazi rocket scientis Wernher von Braun, father of the delivery
> > platform--but which is, in turns, mentioned explicitly by name, clearly
> referred
> > to in a newspaper fragment, and put in touch with Pynchon's many, many
> allusive
> > networks (here, astrology, the liturgical calendar).  I do see some exhibiting
> a
> > certain anxiety about discussing it, perhaps even trying to bypass the subject
> > entirely, writing it off as irrelevant and perhaps even offensive (that'd be
> > you, jbor).
>
> Bypass?! I thought I was *engaging* with the subject at hand which, as I
> understand it, is the extent and significance of Pynchon's treatment of the
> Holocaust in *GR*. I find cheap exploitation of the subject offensive,
> shameful in fact, certainly. Don't you?
>
> >   I've no idea why, but I've even less an idea of why you'd want to
> > discourage anyone else from at least considering the subject.  If you feel
> your
> > time and/or memory is being wasted, well, just ignore and/or delete the
> relevant
> > messages, is all.  Why dump on others for pusrsuing a perfectly reasonable,
> > perfectly relevant, and, to my mind, perfectly interesting line of inquiry
> here?
>
> Dumper or dumpee?