Gravity's Rainbow, A book about war?

[Scott Badger]

sin~Zerely:

> 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.
>

As I once suggested back in ye olde dayes of MDMD, it seems to me, also,
that Pynchon's interests are drawn to the space opened up by a war - both as
a rent in the covering fabric, and as a landscape un-fenced.  To paraphrase
Squalidozzi, historical moments of unlimited hope, and danger (shamelessly
lifted from Graham Benton's article on anarchy and Pynchon in the OCU Law
Review).  The Zone, of course, in GR but perhaps even more so with the
Revolutionary War in MD and the zone they call America.  That we mark up
the, briefly, blank slate with the same old patterns doesn't mean we
*couldn't* come up with something new.

Scott Badger