Holocaust (Re: NP: Not to bring up a shitstorm or anything...

[jbor]

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>From: "Richard Romeo" <richardromeo at hotmail.com>
>

> Agreed, the text is there for us.  But as you or Mr Malign put it 'Pynchon
> was possibly reluctant to write about the Holocaust in GR, or making it a
> central element due to not having directly experienced it or felt inadequate
> in addressing it,' doesn't jibe with all the other instances where he does
> directly with events where he obviosuly didn't/couldn't  witness himself,
> like the Herero killings, or the massacre of the dodos. I can understand if
> you're saying it's sure part of Pynchon's story in GR, but the Holocaust is
> not the central theme, as Pynchon's critique is more wide-ranging. But I'm
> quibbling with the reluctant or witness angle you've put forth, that's all.

OK, point understood. It's certainly not the *only* argument I've advanced,
however, and as I've written already in a couple of offlist posts this
morning, I do happen to agree with what has been said on the reluctance,
Adorno's "dictum" about not being able to represent such events etc.
More and more in his non-fiction I notice Pynchon writing "after 1945" and
"since 1945" (such as in the excerpt from the SL 'Intro' I typed out for
you) and from this I'm convinced that what he wants is a total
dissociation from the period up to 1945 because, for one, he was too young
until then to really understand properly what was happening in the world,
and, secondly (cf. Adorno) the ethical problems of aesthetic (or any)
representation of such a terrible thing as the Shoah are very real. But I
think that there are internal consistencies too: many (both Germans and
non-Germans) *didn't* know what was happening in the Lagers, or they didn't
*want* to know, and it is this which Pynchon does represent in GR imo.

> I suppose it's a wish to state that I beleive Pynchon's work is powerful
> because he can so sharply delineate the human capacity for such horrible
> acts, no matter American, German, British, etc. He's talking about real
> deeds, not abstractions. I suppose with the naming of an evil, we lose sight
> of the evil somehow. not sure I'm explaining myself well. sorry

Actually, he names names, as it were, in the 'Watts' article, much more so
than he does in his fiction. I think that there he is definitely talking
about real deeds, naming evils etc

http://www.pynchon.pomona.edu/uncollected/watts.html

best