Complicity and _GR_ (was Re: IBM, Disney, Bush: Nazis?)

[David Morris]

The character-weighing of Marvy V. Blicero is a fine example of Pynchon's 
complex weavings of values in GR, or at least of the sympathy we learn 
toward the Devil and the revulsion we learn toward Apple Pie.

And just wen I was beginning to erase any message re. IBM...

David Morris

>From: "jbor" Ken McVay wrote last year:
>"Even when Allied leaders _knew_ what was going on, they shied away from 
>public statements/actions because they were afraid of being accused of 
>fighting only for the Jews. This is not a mystery, it is mainstream 
>historical reality.
>The world did not WANT to know."

>It is this question of complicity which looms large in _GR_ as well. A 
>character like Blicero doesn't appear to be motivated by anti-Semitism in 
>the least, personally that is, though he is undoubtedly a Nazi and stands 
>accused of the same war crimes, atrocities and mentality as a Mengele or 
>Barbie at the end of 1945 at Nurnberg. A parallel character such as Major 
>Marvy would be, theoretically, celebrated as a hero at this time despite 
>the fact that he is far more despicable in thought, word and action. His 
>castration -- romantic embellishment or wishful thinking on Pynchon's part 
>-- seems to me to represent the notion of "justice" in Pynchon's novel far 
>more clearly than Nurnberg (or, for that matter, civil suits and the 
>perpetuation of hatred and vilification).
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