Chasing ... Cutting

[Mark Wright AIA]

Howdy

--- jbor <jbor at bigpond.com> wrote: 
> But I still have other questions. How likely is it that the Jewish
> victims
> would think they were being "evacuated" by the Nazis at this late
> stage?

This indeed seems unlikely "at this late stage", though early on
(before the Final Solution clarified itself in the minds of the Nazi
functionaries) matters weren't so clear.  Jews were relocated to places
like the Warsaw Ghetto and held there for a while before being sent to
the camps for further sorting into death-by-work-and-starvation groups
or death-by-XyklonB-or-bullet. 

I don't think I was clear enough in my posts: I think this is pretty
clearly a dream sequence in which both British and German material is
all mixed together.  Pirate is Britsh and so brings half to the table.
There is no clear source for the German material IMO. 

 Is
> the suggestion that they are being taken from one internment camp to
> another, in which case the initial nomination of them as "evacuees"
> would
> seem apt? Or was it the case that sometimes the victims were simply
> civilians who were duped into voluntarily boarding these trains in
> order to
> flee to what they believed to be safe haven? -- I had thought that
> they were
> arrested before being transported, but I do have a recollection that
> this
> might not have always been the case?

See above.

 Again, the timing of this
> opening scene
> is crucial to the logic of this reading. We are a few years into the
> 'Final
> Solution' by now, aren't we? ... Is that "very old and dark hotel"
> described
> in shadowy detail anything like one of the death chambers?

Not much. 

> We don't get any insight into a Jewish perspective at any other point
> in the
> novel: how accurate a portrayal of such a perspective would this be,
> if it
> indeed is?

Not very. I think you are being a bit too much of a literalist

This is a dream sequence (and an extravagant set-piece) opening which
takes us over the "vasty deep" of a peculiarly troubled sleeper and
beyond into the hellish topsy-turvydom of the novel.  All sorts of
stuff is crammed and layered into it.  I wager our author really
sweated the details here, and that almost anything we see in the text
(in this instance, I'm saying) was probably understood and anticipated
by P even if not at the first scratch of pen *intended* as the *real
meaning*.  It seems as if I am granting license to the reader, but I
want to emphasize that I don't extend this license willynilly
throughout the whole of GR (or Moby Dick or Alice in Wonderland for
that matter).  Here, both/and readings are entirely appropriate, though
some *readings* (I'm getting tired of that word, aren't you?) will lead
further, be stronger, and be more convincing.

Mark

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail - Free email you can access from anywhere!
http://mail.yahoo.com/