Holocaust as metaphor? (is also Re: answering jody

[jbor]

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>From: <jp4321 at IDT.NET>
>

> I think a lesser artist would have shied away from such an offensive
> juxtaposition.

I suppose I agree. The term "juxtaposition" effectively sidesteps the
distinction between text and metatext, but I still think it's a distinction
which needs to be made. My point was that if it's simply a "metaphoric
allusion" operating at the level of the narrative then The Holocaust has
been appropriated by Pynchon to exemplify Slothrop's tastebuds.

> The novel is filled with contradictions, some contained in
> set pieces, some spread out over the length of the novel. Slothrop comforts
> a young victim of a rocket strike.

More that the young victim is comforted by Slothrop's presence. He can't
actually do anything, feels like an "idiot"; he doesn't even have any gum
for her, only that Thayer's Slippery Elm (anyone ever had this? it sounds
disgusting -- like Fishermen's Friends? -- and has a sort of resonance with
the Candy Drill episode later), for which she is humbly and poignantly
grateful even so. (I could almost read an allegory of the belated American
entry into WWII in this, supposedly rescuing the 'pride of Britain' but not
really -- just substituting one sort of candy in place of another, really --
in this little setpiece.)

> Later, he fucks and deserts Bianca.

"Fucks and deserts", or "is fucked and deserted by"? Is there a difference?
Is it important?

> There
> is no priviledged point of view in GR, from, ahem, my perspective.
> Objectivity is an illusion.

I agree entirely. That's the paradox, isn't it, the fact that the current
reader's pov is *always* the privileged one, unequivocally and indubitably.
Subjectivity: it's the way "reading", consciousness work.  And so it's *you*
the text ultimately addresses, as you demonstrate below.

> No one is saved. No one is entirely evil. "It is
> too late", but, "There is still time, if you need the comfort, to touch the
> person next to you..."

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)
                                                    ~~~