GR opening

[Doug Millison]

rj: " But, as a number of people have now commented, the notions that Pynchon
relegated the Holocaust to the status of a symbol or metaphor in his novel,
or that he intentionally reduced its historical/moral significance to equal
that of the Evacuation of Londoners during the Blitz in that opening scene,
are, in fact, quite offensive."

In the hands of a lesser artist, perhaps, using the Holocaust as 
"symbol or metaphor" might be "offensive", but that's certainly not 
the case in GR.  At least one Pynchon scholar has anticipated and I 
think thoroughly demolished this kind of simplistic argument: 
Richard Crownshaw, in his article, "Pynchon's Holocaust Allegory", in 
Pynchon Notes 42-43, spring-fall 1998. rj has already dismissed this 
article out of hand at least once without having read it, during the 
GRGR discussion (and Mackin maginalized it with zero analysis), but I 
suggest that some of you might want to read  it and judge for 
yourselves. At any rate, since nobody, including myself, has argued 
here on Pynchon-L, during the four years I've been participating at 
least, that Pynchon has merely "reduced its [the Holocaust] 
historical/moral significance to equal that of the Evacuation of 
Londoners during the Blitz in that opening scene" -- to the contrary, 
quite a few of us have remained open to many possible readings of 
this opening scene, noting allusions to the Holocaust in only one 
among those many readings -- rj would seem to be chasing another of 
his straw men in putting forward this argument.
-- 
d  o  u  g    m  i  l  l  i  s  o  n  <http://www.online-journalist.com>