V.V. (12) Pynchon's letter to Thomas F. Hirsch

[Dave Monroe]

Sez jbor ...

"I think I read the depictions of the Herero
'genocide'/suicide, the dodoes, the Gadarene swine,
the lemmings, Armageddon et. al. (in _GR_, at least),
as exemplifications of various human and natural
processes or responses rather than some 'allusive
chain' of historical cause and effect."

So "Christianity" isn't the "deep" cause here, then? 
But if "Pynchon doesn't seem to be making any such
distinctions," i.e., between colonialist and
noncolonialist violence, nor is he making a
distinction between Christian and non-Christian
violence, either.  Again, the Shoah was not
perpetrated by "Christians," but, rather, by often
outright anti-Christian,even pagan-revivalist Nazis
...

Which is not to say that the Holocaust wasn't abetted
by Christian anti-semitism (and I'm esp. ashamed of
the atrocities in Catholic Croatia [even the SS were
schocked there]), but I'm curious as to how you read
Christianity, as either a monolithic entity or in any
of its particular manifestations, as esp. operative in
Gravity's Rainbow (which seems again to be the text of
choice here), esp. in any sort of negative sense, esp.
in any sort of "deep" way ...

Which is not to say that Pynchon is a Christian of any
stripe, of any particular stripe, certianly, not of
any orthodox, or even practicing, stripe, though
Terrance is making a good case for considering him in
a Christian context of SOME stripe ...

But, then again, you ultimately seem to have dropped
the topic in favor of Pynchon instead catloguing
"various human and natural processes or responses"
with or (seemingly) without any particular aesthetic,
polemic, whatever motivation, perhaps realizing that,
again, you can't have yr relativist Pynchon and yr
Christianity-devalorizing Pynchon, too ...


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