WWII in GR

[Doug Millison]

>At 9:25 PM +0000 8/6/00, Paul Mackin wrote:
>Everyone knows Jewish slave labor was used in the production of the
>rockets. But do you believe you've only wanted "reasonable emphasis" on
>the Holocaust? Seems like you've wanted preponderantly overwhelming
>emphasis.

Mackin can characterise what I say as he wishes, of course. And, if 
he wants to insist on a reading of GR that erases the Holocaust and 
refuses to see the Dora slaves ("Where are the depictions of this 
slave labour in the text?" rj asked), I'd suggest that he's adding 
his own "preponderantly overwhelming emphasis", but of course he can 
go ahead and read it any way that he wants to read it.  If he wants 
to read GR with a primary emphasis on black/white U.S. race 
relations, right on! The novel certainly supports that sort of 
interpretation.  Just as it can support an interpretation that 
focuses on the Holocaust. Or an interpretation that focuses on 
technology and science. Or an interpretation that focuses on 
religion. Or an interpretation that focuses on any of the other, 
myriad aspects of what many have called Pynchon's encyclopedic novel. 
But, if Mackin, or rj, or anybody else wants to insist on a reading 
of GR that precludes the interpretations that other readers bring to 
the novel, I'd suggest they may be treading on thin ice.

You might say that the Holocaust works in GR something like the way 
that slavery works in M&D.  In that novel, Pynchon makes only a few 
references to slavery in North America, but enough to show  the role 
the slaves played in the colonies'  economic good fortune, and enough 
to show their mistreatment and suffering; Dixon's confrontation with 
the slavemaster and his freeing of the slaves in Baltimore rises as a 
high point in the narrative, in much the same way that Pokler's 
realization of his complicity in the suffering and death of the Dora 
slaves rises as a high point in GR. Is slavery central or fundamental 
to M&D? I think such an argument could be supported. But you may 
disagree, and that's OK, too.
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