herero motif

[lorentzen-nicklaus]

 could it be that the herero motif functions as a kind of "missing link" between 
 the issues of slavery and genocide? the german mass-murder of 1904 would then 
 appear to be something like an "included middle" between the holocaust (this 
 connection is explicitly made in v) and american slavery, one of the major 
 themes in mason & dixon. gr is also about the strange afro-diasporic  
 experience of the hereros in germany, and this might be considered to be an  
 echo of the contemporary afro-american situation, pynchon is writing about in  
 the watts essay. in both cases the cultural consequences of social exclusion  
 are described in a similar way, though the watts essay does, if my memory works 
 right, not use the word "death-wish" (yet it speaks of two completely different 
 cultures). an impressive artistic construction. but is it also "pc"?

 are there, btw, articles or something on pynchon's construction of ethnicities? 


kfl