Foreword "Anti-Semitism"

[Mark Wright AIA]

Howdy

--- Paul Mackin <paul.mackin at verizon.net> wrote:
> On Thu, 2003-04-24 at 07:16, Dave Monroe wrote: (quoting P)
> 
> . . . .  There is some felt reticence, as if,
> > with so many other deep issues to worry about, Orwell
> > would have preferred that the world not be presented
> > the added inconvenience of having to think much about
> > the Holocaust.  The novel may even have been his way
> > of redefining a world in which the Holocaust did not
> > happen.
> 
> This passage is of interest because we can't help but think the same
> observation might be applied to Gravity's Rainbow. If the Holocaust
> had
> been given any more than minimal attention in GR, could other themes
> of
> the book have been developed with the same force? The Holocaust made
> WW
> II more than just your average run of the mill Imperialistic or even
> defensive war.  It would serve Pynchon's purpose to portray WW II as
> pretty much a re-enactment of WW I. The Holocaust throws this line of
> thinking into a tizzy.  The  omission in both books was the taking of
> a
> necessary literary license.

Reminding myself of my take on this years ago now...
>From the archives:
******
Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2000 06:35:05 -0700 (PDT)
From: Mark Wright AIA <mwaia@[omitted]>
Subject: Re: WWII in GR
To: Doug Millison <millison@[omitted]>
Cc: pynchon-l@[omitted]

Howdy
--- Doug Millison <millison@[omitted]> wrote:

> Dave wonders how this whole thread started. I'd date it to the 
> beginning of GRGR, when I suggested that the "Ss" in "cast-iron 
> pulleys whose spokes are shaped like Ss"  might be read as an 
> allusion to the Nazi SS, and that it might be possible to read the 
> opening of GR as an allusion to the death trains on their way to the 
> concentration camps --  rj ridiculed that suggestion and went on to 
> talk about the absence of the Holocaust from GR. As RJ has so 
> consistently tried to minimize this aspect of the novel if not erase 
> it from consideration altogether, I've made it a point to lift this 
> material up for consideration.

And *I* would like to highlight the sensitivity of my own symbolical
dowsing rod by reminding one and all of my perspicacity in pointing out
back then that not only are the "Ss" in the pulley an unmistakable SS
reference (nods to Doug), their circumscription by the "O" of the
pulley makes the entire image also a reference to the OSS (Office of
Strategic Services) which figures later in the text.  The density of
meaning in those details which seem least significant makes this
passage a spendid 'scription of Freudian dreamwork.  This density of
meaning also characterizes the work as a whole.  Perhaps the way the
Holocaust comes sloping in and out of view, through as sort of textual
reflection and refraction, indicates that P felt that the Holocaust is
such an enormity that if it were confronted more directly it would
trump the moral complexities he intends to demonstrate? A light touch
on the Holocaust allows him to illuminate the "Racketenstadt" within
which we all live, and allows us to see WWII as somehting more than an
Us (Good) vs Them (Evil) structure? 

Mark (Murk)
******
Here endeth the reading.

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