Foreword "Anti-Semitism"
Otto
ottosell at yahoo.de
Sat Apr 26 09:12:58 CDT 2003
----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Mackin" <paul.mackin at verizon.net>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Friday, April 25, 2003 1:55 AM
Subject: Re: Foreword "Anti-Semitism"
> 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.
>
>
> Of course we've discussed this question before, but it's interesting to
> receive commentary on it from Pynchon's pen.
>
>
>
>
> P.
"(...) that antisemitism will be definitively CURED, without curing the
larger disease of nationalism, I do not believe."
http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/o/o79e/part24.html
It's interesting that "1984" portrays a world where this "disease" has
obviously disappeared. Pynchon says in the foreword:
"As nearly as one can tell, Orwell considered anti-semitism 'one variant of
the great modern disease of nationalism,'"
So for Orwell's novel playing in the future the Holocaust is irrelevant. I
think
that at the time when he wrote that comment the real dimensions of what had
happened in the German concentration camps were still unknown to most of
the ordinary people.
I always thought that Pynchon wrote GR under the same (historical correct)
premise that these facts where unknown to the overwhelming part of the
world's population, so his novel personnel being busy with the Rocket
mustn't necessarily know
about the death camps. How much did the Dutch resistance know?
"Wim and the others have invested time and lives--three Jewish families sent
east (...) Jews are negotiable." (105)
Otto
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