Gravity's Rainbow, A book about war?

[Dave Monroe]

Contrary to popular (or otherwise) opinion here, this
is not entirely incongruent with what may or may not
(again, I try to stay in process on such things) prove
to be my take on Gravity's Rainbow as well.  I'd
quibble, of course, with "deeper" here, given my
poststructuralist proclivities (and I'm lately quite
taken with that Deleuzian notion of "folds," derived,
apparently, from both the baroque Leibniz and
contemporary catastrophe theory, everything ultimately
of a piece, "depth," layers, strata, whatever, an
apparent effect of various enfoldings, creases, plies,

cf. that "V." as a diagram of various theories,
operations of history), but GR is obviously not an
historical novel ((c) Gyorgy Lukacs) in any standard
sense, in any common usage.  Which is why scuffles
over historical evrcaity have sometimes seemed beside
the point here ...

Which is not to say the effort, the research, is
unproductive.  As Otto indicates, and as has long been
my position here as well, Gravity's Rainbow, by virtue
of its ostensible historical setting (WWII), as well
as its contemporary historical contexts (the Cold War,
Vietnam), cannot help but evoke the actualities of
either.  Sure, not every possible reader is going to
be aware of these contexts, but certainly every likely
reader, esp. at the time, place of GR's writing,
publication, might well be expected to be.  And the
conrasts often prove interesting, productive,
diffrences that make a diffrence ((c) Gregory
Bateson).  
Whether or not Pynchon "intended" such contexts as
subtexts.  Though I do read GR as reading WWII as a
particularly pernicious fold ("a progressive knotting
into"), 1945 not as a discontinuity, but as a metonym
(or is that synecdoche?  Can never keep those straight
... as emblematic?) ...

But, if one is to assert that Gravity's Rainbow is not
necessarily, essentially, really, whatever, "about"
(in a strong ense) WWII, or does not necessarily
address the Cold War (though it certainly does, via
the arms race), or is written, offered, without
reference to other possible contemporary contexts
(say, Vietnam), a valid question might be, how could
the text NOT be expected to be read in light of such
contexts?  And is there thus a certain ignorance of
reading practices, but also a certain (and I do not
"intend" this in any damning way, but ...) political
irresponsibility, involved as well?  But again,
mitigating factor include  that peculiar responsibilty
hinted at by Adorno's dictum, as well as by that way
the marginal deconstructively tends to assume
significance, an this I do not think is, er,
"unintentional" here ...

But, no doubt in part a result of considerations of
both time and space here, we are constantly caught
between contour sketches and finely painted details
here, with that midrange excluded, indeed ...



--- s~Z <keith at pfmentum.com> wrote:
 
> And go Eric. I think you have articulated my opinion
> about the
> holocaust in GR as well. Neither the war, nor the
> holocaust, are
> central to GR. Pynchon is brilliantly addressing the
> deeper issues, in
> all of their complexity, behind the historical
> events of that era. So,
> yes, the book is in a sense 'about' the war and the
> holocaust. But
> both are given scant direct attention because he is
> dealing with the
> big picture; spiritually, economically,
> intellectually,
> philosophically, and politically.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 


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