WWII in GR

[jbor]

----------
>From: muchasmasgracias at cs.com
>To: "jbor" <jbor at bigpond.com>
>Subject: Re: WWII in GR
>Date: Wed, Aug 9, 2000, 11:44 AM
>

> One thing in particular that sticks in my mind is one of those three
> passages (p428?) when Pokler sees the slaves and the narrator remarks (as I
> bullshit with my copy of GR on the other side of America)
snip

Yes. There's a reported conversation between Pokler and his "daughter" right
after this which exemplifies the whole "orbiting around the Holocaust"
aspect of the novel that nohed notes as well. The mention of Franz's
"blindness" about the labour slaves in Dora shifts in the space of a
sentence to his rueful ignorance about her internment in the very same camp
all along. Then:

   Trying, a bit late for it, to the pain he should have been feeling,
  he questioned her now. Did she know the name of her camp? Yes, Ilse
  confirmed -- or was told to answer -- that it was Dora. The night
  before she left to come here she'd seen a hanging. Evening was the hour
  for the hangings. Did he want to hear about it? Did he want to hear about
  it. . . .

The question and its echo (Pokler's, ours), is another of those moments when
Pynchon is taunting -- tormenting -- his reader at the same time and in the
same context as the character is tormented. Do *we* want to hear about it?
And if we do, *why* do we want to hear about it? (We don't hear about it,
however ... )

best