pynchon-l-digest V2 #1604

[Doug Millison]

"His deepest insight, I think, is to see in John Paul II's 
transforming papacy a deep grasp of how central the Jewish question 
is to the current state of the church. Karol Wojtyla did not merely 
attempt to reach out to Jews. He didn't merely apologize. He went to 
the Western Wall. He shuffled up to it as a Jew might, and prayed, 
and inserted a small piece of votive paper into its cracks. Here's 
how Carroll superbly describes it: ''The church was honoring the 
Temple it had denigrated. It was affirming the presence of the Jewish 
people at home in Jerusalem. The pope reversed an ancient current of 
Jew hatred with that act, and the church's relationship to Israel, 
present as well as past, would never be the same.''

>Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 13:13:34 -0800
>From: "s~Z" <keith at pfmentum.com>
>Subject: Read, But Do Not Discuss
>
>www.nytimes.com/books/01/01/14/reviews/010114.14sullivt.html?0112bk


Given the religious content of V. and Pynchon's other works, it's 
difficult to see why discussion of same should be avoided -- I like 
the way Terrance deals with this kind of material in the current 
discussion. The fusion of Christianity with imperial power -- which 
Carroll's book discusses, according to this review -- and the 
institutional betrayal of the movement's early promise might be seen 
to be an important element in P's work. Your mileage may vary, of 
course.
-- 
d  o  u  g    m  i  l  l  i  s  o  n  <http://www.online-journalist.com>