Imagining the Holocaust

[Paul Mackin]

I thought the name of the thread might have been the wisecrack you
mentioned, so wanted to clarify. Sorry I got my cartoonists mixed up
however.

If people want Pynchon to be on their side I think it's a little
unfortunate--though understandable. For what it's worth, whenever I start
thinking I'm on a particular side of some two-sided issue I look around
the room and see whose agreeing with me and quickly begin
considering seeing reasons why the OTHER side may better deserve
support. Something like that anyway. Hate "sides." 

 				P.





On Tue, 15 Aug 2000, Dave Monroe wrote:

> No misunderstanding whatsoever, and it's quite possibly inevitable that
 just about anything touching on the Holocaust in whatever way is going to be
 problematic to
> somebody somehwere, so ... and there is no doubt much in that Pynchonian
 ouevre that is problematic to somebody somewhere as well, inc. maybe even me.
  Think much recent
> debate (such as it was) might well be the result of various commentators
 here attempting to claim Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow, as somehow less
 problematic, perhaps maybe
> even more agreeable, to their own sense of just what a "problem" might
 be than to that of others.  As with, say, the Bible or Shakespeare or
 whatever for some, I'm sure
> we'd all like to feel that Pynchon is somehow "on our side."  Which is
 why I'm curious as to what ultimately, say, jbor, might be claiming about
 the book, in re: the
> Holocaust.  in re: history, politics, aesthetics, whatever, in general.
  For starters.  Me, I didn't really cruise in with a full-blown Reading
 all ready to deploy, just
> making notes, offering observations, is all.  Maus, by the way, is
 Art Spegelman, if that's what you mean, but let me know if R. Crumb
 ever did anything on the
> Holocaust--R. Crumb on ANYTHING is bound to be "problematic," albeit
 interesting and even enjoyable nonetheless ...

> 
> 
>