Pynchon & rap

[Dave Monroe]

Again, this "central" (repeated most often by anybody
BUT Doug in the periodic "debate" here ...) is
ditsracting us here.  It might ultimately prove to be
the only real bone of contention, beyond just plain
animosity amongst a few of us here (and I do not
necessarily except myself in that regard ...).  But I
think it fair to say that Gravity's Rainbow in no
small part seems concerned with how the world has
reached a state (ca., keep in mind, the Vietnam War
here) where events like the Holocaust, Hiroshima, the
Gulag, global thermonuclear war, et al., happen and
may well continue to happen.  That trajectory, again
...

--- Monte Davis <modavis at bellatlantic.net> wrote:
> 
> To claim that it is obvious that the Holocaust is a
> central theme in GR is ridiculous and insulting to
> the novel ("Have you read Thomas Pynchon's novel
GR?" 
> "Yes, it deals with the Holocaust." "What does it 
> say?" "The Holocaust was bad."). No, the difficulty 
> is how to account for this relative absence.
> 
> One possibility--which, alas, would not support
> much flame-baiting--is simply that in the ~30
> years since GR's composition, the Holocaust has come
> to assume a much larger place in our collective
> memory of WWII.

I do think that Americans were, and remain, despite
the efforts of Sen. McCarthy et al., far more aware of
Nazi atrocities than Stalinist ones, not only because
we had officially been at war with Germany, but also
because of the concentrated, graphic shock of them
shortly after the war, the public airing of them
during the Nuremburg trials, and firsthand American
experince of their aftermath.  We didn't liberate the
Gulags.  And keep in mind that many, perhaps even
most, Americans STILL think the U.S. was justified in
dropping the boimb on Hirsohima an Nagasaki ...

> My null hypothesis is that the "relative absence"
> may be nothing more than the result of applying
> 2001's perspective to a 1973 novel. GR has taught me
> a great deal about inhumane Systems, of which the
> Holocaust was one consequence. But so were Stalin's
> purges of the 1930s, which are only glancingly
> present in the Tchitcherine/Kirghiz story line. So
> were the civilian deaths by bombing in Japan, which
> are only glancingly present via Ensign Morituri and
> a scrap of newspaper.
 
You know, I would never have thought to comment on
"the Holocaust in GR" much here myself, EXCEPT that it
seemed a point of contention.  The Holocaust as a
significant context for GR is just obvious to me, but,
as Otto and others have shown, it can be alluded to in
rather less than obvious ways.  The other glanced
presences" you mention serve no doubt much the same
function, though GR's immediate setting (Germany 1945)
makes the Nazi atrocities most pervasive.  But that
remnant of a headline, in particular, is nonetheless a
powerful moment ...

> The Holocaust is also "relatively absent" from
> _Catch-22_, "Saving Private Ryan," _The Thin Red
> Line_, and "Enemy at the Gates". Is it significant
> that Pynchon gives such short shrift to American air
> bases in Italy, to the Normandy campaign, to the
> Pacific war, or to Stalingrad? (And while we're at
> it, why is he so provocatively silent about the
> internment of Japanese-Americans?)

Okay, now I believe you're being facetious here.  But,
to respond seriously nonetheless, again, setting is
the key factor here.  Not to mention Pynchon's, GR's
frequent excurses on extinction, extermination, et al.
  Though one might ask questions about the
extraodinary effort expended to safeguard one American
soldier in SPR while ... and, again, I haven't read
C-22 in some time now, but as I recall there is a
sense in which Heller's novel is rather less
immediately "about" WWII thanm Pynchon's.  Less
attention to historical specificities, for example,
more a satire of a certain brand of (il)logic ...

> -Monte Davis <a P-list reader since 1995 -- and a
> lurker since 1998 largely
> because of interminable, unprofitable flamefests
> like l'affaire
> Millison-jbor>

But this is what really worries me around here.  Hell,
when even I'm afraid to post something for fear of the
inevitable shitslide, things have gotten bad.  And
I've only been at this a year or so ...


__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail
http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/