GR Holocaust as Metaphor?

[jbor]

----------
>From: <davemarc at panix.com>
>

> Perhaps there's a better word than "metaphor" to describe how Pynchon "uses
> the Holocaust" in GR.

Yes, the distance between direct reference and metaphoric allusion is quite
wide. I would suggest that the latter is a type of textual signification
which is subsidiary to the former, i.e. a "reduction".

Direct references to the Holocaust are few and far between in _GR_. Further,
it appears to me that many of the "allusions" which are being claimed are
tenuous at best, and most seem to rely on decontextualisation, or outright
and deliberate misreading of Pynchon's words.

best


~~~
    "By 1945, the factory system - which, more than
     any piece of machinery, was the real and major
     result of the Industrial Revolution - had been
     extended to include the Manhattan Project, the
     German long-range rocket program and the death
     camps, such as Auschwitz.It has taken no major
     gift of prophecy to see how these three curves
      of development might plausibly converge, and
                before too long. ... "
                                 (T. Pynchon, 1984)
                                                    ~~~