Foreword "Anti-Semitism"

[Paul Mackin]

On Sat, 2003-04-26 at 10:12, Otto wrote:
> ----- 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.

Or, a world in which antisemitism--with or without a specific Holacaust--hadn't
necessary ever been an important factor. An imaginary world. A world suited to
Orwell's purposes. As Terrance reminds us, 1984 is fiction, though quite serious
fiction.


 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.



If it was before the liberation of the camps, this is probably true.

> 
> 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.

It's a reasonable premise.


 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
>