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

[Paul Mackin]

On Oct 27, 2005, at 8:31 PM, Peter E. Zelz wrote:

> I, a lurker, present myself for a flaming.  I read GR once, about  
> 15 years
> ago and was overwhelmed, amazed, captivated, confused, dazzled,  
> fascinated.
> Really looking forward to going through it again with the group and
> benefiting from insights provided by an obviously eclectic bunch of  
> people.
> However, not having majored in English, not having any particular  
> interest
> in Literary Criticism (capital L, capital C),

I thought all the LitCrit offered so far was in jest.  What was that  
quantum theory connection There was a half serious attempt to  
deconstruct science.

> I'm having a hard time
> understanding all the round'n'round about the holocaust and GR.  I,  
> for
> one, frankly don't care whether or not the "Holocaust was 'central'  
> to GR",

There is only one person alive who thinks the Holocaust central to  
the book. Everyone who knows what the Holocaust was sees fleeting  
allusions to it here and there. One or two people are trying hard to  
find deep thematic reasons  for its general absence--reasons other  
than that the author was writing about something else.


> and further am not sure why I should.  Is there some perverse PC tenet
> which states that every novel set in Europe in the first half of  
> the 1940s
> has to address the holocaust?  Are there other unwritten laws that  
> state
> that novels set in other locales and times must concern themselves  
> with
> particular historical events?
>
> Cheers,
> z
>
>
>
>
>> [Original Message]
>> From: <MalignD at aol.com>
>> To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>> Date: 10/27/2005 18:45:43
>> Subject: Re: re re re re Re: "The Evacuation still proceeds..." GR  
>> Part 1
>>
> Section 1
>
>>
>> << he includes enough direct references to the Holocaust to nail  
>> it for
>>
> the
>
>> reader, who can safely assume that the novel's settings include the
>>  death camps,  >>
>>
>> This seems a good bit of backpedaling from your previous claims  
>> that the
>> Holocaust was "central" to Gravity's Rainbow, against what any  
>> reasonable
>>
> reader
>
>> would respond, which is that the Holocaust is all but absent from GR.
>>
>> Joseph Heller was asked why he, a Jew, didn't include mention of the
>> Holocaust in Catch 22 and he said that he couldn't include it without
>>
> making Catch 22
>
>> a very different book from the one he was writing.  That has always
>>
> seemed to
>
>> me the case with GR as well, along with, perhaps, Pynchon's  
>> modesty about
>> addressing something which he was without stature (by dint of youth,
>>
> background,
>
>> experience) to address.
>>
>
>
>