I wanna be contrary too!

[Ben McLeod]

Now I don't want to be the P-List Pollyanna, and I'm not implying that the 
discussion of the Holocaust, or the critical discussion of GR is useless, or 
even less than fun for some.  But after scanning my mail for the first time 
in four days, can you imagine what reading all that in one sitting does to 
my perky disposition?
  This is probably the most naieve take entered yet, but I've got two cents 
for the jar...
  When WWII was in full swing, TRP was what, 8? 9?  When the book came out 
(and roughly when I was born) all of these events hade been over with for 30 
years.  So this is a mythical place for Lil' Tommy, a place and time that 
was beyond his ability to appreciate when it was an actuality.  (Not that 
post-war Europe was a big center for enjoyment.)   But now he's got a story 
to tell, and here is this fabulous window of time and space, where people 
from all around the globe were rubbing elbows (polite way to say pointing 
guns at each other) witnessing the birth of so many myths (Hitler's Brain, 
Bormann's Skull, SS Flying Saucers, lost looted gold) and ushering in some 
truly terrifying devils that were even more powerful in the 60's and 70's as 
the book was being written (the Bomb, the Rocket, Cthuolian Corperate 
Conglomerates).
  I was always a little baffled by the lean commentary on the Holocaust in 
GR, which was to my mind, thanks to high school, the only thing  significant 
about the war, bookended between Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima- I mean, this is 
a WWII novel, innit?  Where's all the Jews?  The stereotypical evil Nazi?  
The rugged American liberator?
  I feel like there has been a lot said about the Holocaust, and there is 
still a lot being said.  But by making it the only issue of the war it 
effectivly obfuscates a lot of other relevant events.  And, GR being a work 
of fiction, perhaps Tommy's idea was to focus on other aspects of that 
magical window that he felt he could approach, or wanted to approach, and 
leave the fictionalizing of the Holocaust to someone else.  Would the book 
be the same, would it be as satisfying if it brought up the camps every 
other page, like so many other books in that post war "What Happened?" 
genre?
  I guess I feel that by orbiting around the Holocaust, and referring to 
what other delightfully horrific events were also in full swing, t does not 
deny the Holocaust, but add to the unplesantness of an aready unplesant 
situation (WWII).
  And at it's conclusion, is it about the war, or about what lead up to it, 
and what dark doors it opened onto into our world?

  Speaking of it's conclusion, what is the next section to read?  Please 
give me the first lines, (off list) because no one seems to believe that my 
edition has different page numbers (my mass market ed. had 830 pages and 
tiny tiny type).

Turn that frown upside down!

nohed
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