re Re: NP: Twain, Part One and more

[MalignD at aol.com]

<<Following this sort of reasoning, should Pynchon be considered has having 
exploited the Herero in GR?>>

I suspect, given Millison's hagiographic approach to Pynchon, that this was 
meant as a rhetorical question. I find it more than that.  Is there an 
exploitation when an artist (not necessarily Pynchon, but he's the example 
here) uses the drama of such an event (as the slaughter of the Herero) for 
artistic ends?  

GR was not "about" the Herero slaughter; it is not an historical novel of 
that event or even a tangential fiction about South Africa of the sort Nadine 
Gordimer might write.  It is, in GR, an important but tangential subplot that 
contributes to the overall artistic shape of the novel, is used to that 
effect.  (It does more, yes, but spare me for the moment; I'm entertaining an 
idea, not writing a thesis.)   Is there a sort of pornographic element in 
this?  

I had similar feelings watching Schindler's List whenever Spielberg indulged 
his mastery of the craft of filmmaking.  It  seemed, to a degree, unsavory 
and crass and worse.  Is it other than grotesque to use one's skill in this 
fashion, to create and frame a beautiful shot of the horrors at Aushwitz or 
to write fictional prose similarly?  I had another, similar, response (and 
this post is not written to pick on Millison, however--) when Millison kept 
going on about the Holocaust as metaphor in GR.  Metaphor for what?  How can 
one talk or think about the Holocaust in those terms?  

There's a part of me made very uncomfortable by the question raised (because 
I've thought it about Spielberg, about movies, but not about fiction; 
certainly not about Pynchon and GR)  and it seems to generalize to these 
questions:  how does one properly create art that uses the suffering--and, 
worse, the slaughter--of others?  How should one respond to a moving passage 
in a work of fiction about such a thing?  

Are the impulses to make art and to be truthful to the facts at odds (i.e., 
can one, with conscience and without shame, seek an artistic effect)?  I 
feel, as I write, that art is appropriate only in the way that Primo Levi's 
writing is art--not as a sought-after end, but as a side effect of the fact 
that he writes well.  About Shoah, the film, as art, similarly.  I'm uneasy 
with the rest and invite response.