WWII in GR

[jbor]

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D. Monroe:
>

snip
> 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 ...

The Holocaust is not irrelevant. (That's, "*The* Holocaust is *not*
irrelevant -- *period*") Nevertheless, "actual presence" in a given text is
not equivalent to "conspicuous absence", however you look at it. I have said
all along that the "conspicuous absence" of the Holocaust from the narrative
of *GR* is worthy of comment. And what I have taken issue with are attempts
to connect every scene, image, character and/or word in the novel to the
Holocaust, particularly when such interpretations merely serve to cheapen
the integrity of the literary narrative and in fact cast Pynchon's attitude
towards the Holocaust as somewhat shallow (eg the suggestion that the
Argentine sub episode is a comment on Nazi ratlines -- What *is* the
comment? Where is it in the text? -- or that S-shaped spokes are a reference
to the SS -- To what purpose? What could be the point of such meaningless
symbolism?) And why are you so sure that Pynchon is writing in a "liberal
... democratic context"? What if it were suggested that his novel is in fact
a *critique* of such a "context"?

best