WWII in GR

[Dave Monroe]

... I think perhaps, and I think that many here might well agree, that Gravity's
Rainbow, among many other things, maps a certain continuity with the bureacracy,
the militarism, the nationalism, the industrialism, you name it, from Nazi
Germany to Cold War America, perhaps even that "war of allocation among various
technologies" or whatever written of within the text (page, anyone?), though the
question has been asked, just how seriously does Pynchon himself present,
believe in, any of the, I don't know, theories of history or whatever he nigh
unto tosses off in the course of the novel?  Dale Carter's The Final Frontier
takes this up explicitly, though, with particular regard to Hannah Arendt's The
Origin of Totalitarianism (1951, with subsequent eds.).   Carter summarizes
Arendt as reading WWII as a transition from imperialism to totalitarianism, the
latter beginning in particular with Stalin and then Hitler (why not Mussolini?),
the former ending with the end of British rule in India (but what about all
those other colonies?  Algeria and the French, if nothing else?  But those are
the major points, granted ...).

Carter, however, would revise, rewrite this, with "Nazism and Stalinism as
transitional forms of control," viewing "World War II--along with
Pynchon--as"--though I think this is bad phrasing here, as it's not at first
clear that he means that he and Pynchon are viewing ... rather than that he is
viewing WWII and Pynchon as ...--"the central phase of a transformation within
the developing global system of power which now incorporates both capitalist and
state capitalist societies."  Carter also paraphrases Arendt (in a later ed. of
TOOT (?!)) as identifying "anti-communism as America's own official
'counter-ideology' which mirrors many of the characteristics of those
totalitarian ideologies the Unites States official opposes.  To this extent,"
Carter claims, "her analysis of totalitarianism is applicable beyond its Nazi
and Stalinist forms."  All of this is quite conveniently located in "Appendix 1"
to The Final Frontier (pp. 272-4; "Appendix 2" is a very intersting indeed
excursus on Clive Mossmoon, of all people).

"However," Carter continues, "Arendt's analysis focuses on the radical
differences bewteen imperailism and totalitarianism and pays less attention to
the fact (though she acknowledges it) that imperialism is not so much replaced
by totalitarianism as absorbed into it," giving the examples of the US and the
USSR, as well as noting the imperialism of Nazi Germany (now on p. 273).  He
note as well, however, the technocratic aspects of the Third Reich, as well as
the "persistence of imperialism" in the US (and, one might add, the USSR (before
I get jumped on for Carter's o'ersight here ...)).  Thus, "there is no single
satisfactory term for the international power structure which has developed
since 1945," he concludes, claiming that phrases like "friendly fascism"
(Gross), "late capitalism" (Mandel), and so forth ("the postindustrial society"
(Bell)?) "express"--and I think there's an implied "only" here--"aspects of the
system."

He then moves on (pp. 273-4) to Norman Mailer, of all people, who "draws on and
restructures Arendt's analysis" in The Presidential Papers, and who "suggests
that 'totalitaranism is better understood if it is regarded as a plague rather
than examined as a style of ideology'" (citing Mailer, TPP, p. 191).  This,
Carter suggests, noting that Mailer "elaborates the relationship bewten Arendt's
use of the term and his own" ('cos Carter sure doesn't quite do it),
differentiates "Nazi totalitarianism and American" (p.274), and, perhaps drawing
on Mailer's terminology (not clear here), he refers to this as "incipient
totalitarianism," claiming that "it differentiates the two forms and at the same
time indicates the eschatological momentum of contemporary capitalism" (ibid.).

Sound applicable?  Familiar, even?  But, if Gravity's Rainbow is, indeed,
mapping something along these lines, and I think it is, does that somehow
negate, or, at any rate, render irrelevant or even superfluous the atrocities of
WWII, of the Third Reich (the Holocaust), perhaps even of the US
(Hiroshima, and, no, I'm not particularly interested in arguing whether or not
we should have, needed to, whatever, the Bomb, though Hiroshima is no doubt
relevant, present, even, represented, an quite interestingly, in Gravity's
Rainbow), at least in reading, discussing the novel?  My argument, and I think
Doug might concur, is that the Holocaust (as well as Hiroshima) is indeed
relevant, not only by virtue of actual mentions and represntations of, as well
as numerous allusions to, the Holocaust,
but by virtue of the very setting of much, even most, of the novel, Germany,
WWII as well.  Indeed, given that setting, it would be at LEAST as worthy of
comment were the Holocaust ostensibly absent from the novel, by virtue of its
conspicuous absence.  The Holocaust is just that significant, is all, at
least--certainly, even--in the indeed liberal (in the classical sense or
otherwise) democratic context in which Pynchon wrote, Viking published and we
((hopefully will) continue to) read the novel ...

jbor wrote:

> bureaucrats and military commanders were not an invention of the Nazis, and
> their existence and prestige in the West has continued unabated (which is
> what the Tarot reading is showing the reader imo) despite the atrocities of
> the war for which they can be held morally responsible, or, *are*
> responsible as far as *any* individual can be responsible for such things.