re Re: "The Evacuation still proceeds..." GR Part 1 Section 1

[pynchonoid]

jbor: [...] Dora was not a death camp, it was a labour
camp [...]

...where many of the slaves died, it's depressingly
well documented. And the Holocaust expert jbor dragged
into the discussion last time insisted that they be
considered Holocaust victims, some of you may recall. 


I'm not interested in playing semantic games with
"death camp", jbor can go ahead without me on that
one. 

Nice to see jbor accepting the manufacture of V-2
rockets by Holocaust victims as a central theme of the
novel, too - after so much kicking and screaming by
him and others against such an interpretation last
time around. Perhaps we're all mellowing a bit with
time...

No need to play games with "offstage" either, I guess,
although how the dying slave laborers in the camp can
be considered "offstage" when Pynchon puts Pokler in
among them right there on the page, in front of God
and everybody, I don't quite compute. But that's OK,
there's lots I don't understand about an infinite
number of topics.

The Holocaust permeates GR in the same way that it
stains the history of the period, obvious to readers
in '73 and later in a way that might not have been
possible in the media ecology of the War and immediate
post-War period. And Pynchon accomplishes this without
semonizing or docu-dramatizing or otherwise
ham-handling it. And manages to work in threads of
countless other themes of importance, too. Part of
what makes it such a great book, imo.

The Holocaust makes an appearance in V., too, and
Pynchon sticks with the genocide theme in M&D.  Sorry,
Mr. Mackin, it is a grim subject, but that doesn't
seem to deter many readers or writers, and especially
not Mr. Pynchon.





http://pynchonoid.org
"everything connects"


		
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