Holocaust as metaphor? (is also Re: answering jody

[jbor]

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>From: jporter <jp4321 at IDT.NET>

> I read it as a reference to me, because I was offended by the failed use of
> The Holocaust as a metaphor.

An example that is clearer in terms of this alleged "Holocaust as metaphor"
thing, and which has always concerned or puzzled me I must admit, is during
the Disgusting English Candy Drill when the text sez that Slothrop's
"tongue's a hopeless holocaust" (118.11) while he's being force-fed all
those sadistically-flavoured lollies in the shapes of war weaponry by the
Quoad-witch. It is a metaphor, and there are, at first glance, two
possibilities:

1) Pynchon was making an allusion to The Holocaust; or,

2) Pynchon wasn't making an allusion to The Holocaust.

If the first, then yes, I agree with you that, in the context of the scene,
tone of the narrative at this point etc etc it fails terribly, is in
exceptionally poor taste, and in fact goes beyond mere Holocaust-denial to
verge on something far worse.

If the second, then why has Pynchon deliberately chosen such a loaded term
for his metaphor?

But what I suspect, or perhaps want to suspect, is that somewhere between
the "response" (how can the reader *not* instantly make the association with
The Holocaust when the word is there staring them in the face like that?),
and the "interpretation" (why is it there? what does it mean? why have I
been laughing? how could I laugh at this?) there has to be another option. I
can't countenance the suggestion that the word has slipped in there simply
by chance, that it's *just* Slothrop's comically hyperbolic reaction to the
tamarind-pepsin-nougat-cubeb-camphor "bomb" in his mouth (though it is this
too). I'd like to think Pynchon's actually trying to do something
responsibly with it, that it is deliberate -- that he has some reason for
hitting the reader right between the eyes with a sudden and totally
unexpected recollection of The Holocaust in what is otherwise perhaps one of
the funniest setpiece scenes in the entire novel -- rather than
irresponsibly, i.e. appropriating The Holocaust as metaphor simply for the
purpose of *comedy* and thereby diminishing its significance ... reducing,
relegating etc etc.

Slothrop, of course, c. 1944 is none the wiser and can't be blamed; this is
something which is going on between Pynchon and the reader.

Dunno ... what do you think?

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)
                                                    ~~~