"So non-fiction is better than fiction?"

[jolly]

Yeah, in most cases.  But I didn't say non-fiction--I said HISTORY. Any reading of GR not informed by a decent and detailed understanding of  3rd reich politics--such as the role of  the sinister chemical conglomerate IG Farben---will really be pretty much useless, not much better than skimming  Zone Comix: the Furry Freak Brothers Meet the Waffen SS!  
 
And not to play Malvolio, ( there are worse roles) but I think we should question the verisimilitude of GR, and all of Pynchon.  For instance, does the psychedelic zaniness (such as Slothrop falling in toilet in search of a harmonica) undercut any attempts at a serious interpretation?   Such questions  would not bode well for academic lit. types, for then they might begin to question the validity of fiction and literature itself. So my question is that perennial materialist one: what information does GR have to impart to students or citizens that  the historical record doesn't.  Obviously it does depart from the historical record (though being predicated upon it), but is this information or speculation or linguistic free jazz of use to us.  Imagine you wanted to use GR in a WWII fiction class, but had to justify your selection of it to the History Department Chairperson....
 
,

		
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