Homer, hyperbole & ad hominem

[Otto Sell]

(trying to avoid all contaminated words, all inappropriate comparisons)

Mutual accusation of neo-naziisms of any sort isn't a very successful
strategy to keep this list running effectively.
I have once (involuntarily) started this discussion, because I saw in the
opening sentence screams of different groups of victims, not knowing that it
has been on the list before, causing bitter arguments.

Again, I think TRP managed it quite skillfully not to mention it directly
without neglecting it totally, which would be wrong too because the
knowledge of the holocaust in the minds of the readers cannot be erased that
at the actual time of the novel those things are going on in Poland, but we
must be aware that most characters of the novel are not really knowing what
is done to the Jews by the Germans. In this way I think he very successfully
describes the "eidos" (as Michael Naumann had put it in the radio
discussion) of that time, the oscillation between knowing/not-knowing. This
is not misuse in my opinion. As far as Post-War-Germany is concerned I
really was "gobsmacked" how TRP's descriptions fit to the stories I'd heard
from my family members who had survived WW-2.

I do not see jbor's posts as an accusation of Dave or Doug, but as a warning
of falsification, as he says to keep the integrity of the text, not to
overload it with too big images or a misuse of the Shoah as a metaphor.

Different from jbor I see numerous "little" references to the fact that
there is something going on with the Jews, for example the Katje-story of
bringing her near Weissmann, the things the Dutch resistance did to Jewish
families to launch their agent Katje.

Doug, it's the rocket, not Auschwitz. And GR is a warning (too, among other
things), a warning repeated in the Luddism-essay, pointing out to us. In
1973 and 1984 we all were in danger being killed by rockets, not by
death-camps.

Could someone give me the actual page-numbers of V. to read please!

Otto