Hopeless Holocaust

[kelber at mindspring.com]

With passing references to the Nazi Holocaust, the Herrero genocide and Hiroshima, GR is really about the coming nuclear holocaust, whose origins were in the Nazi rocket programs of WWII, and which was the principal threat (somewhat eclipsed by terrorism today) to humanity at the time GR was written.  IMHO, that is.

>From wikipedia entry on holocaust etymology:

The word holocaust originally derived from the Greek word holokauston, meaning "a completely (holos) burnt (kaustos) sacrificial offering", or "a burnt sacrifice offered to God". In Greek and Roman pagan rites, gods of the earth and underworld received dark animals, which were offered by night and burnt in full. Holocaust was later used to refer to a sacrifice Jews were required to make by the Torah. But since the mid-19th century, the word has been used by many authors to refer to large catastrophes and massacres, particularly those caused by immolation. Referring to the Second World War in the years following, writers in English tended to use the term in relation to events such as the bombing of Dresden or Hiroshima, rather than the Nazi genocide; it was not until the 1970s that the latter began to become the conventional meaning of the word, when used unqualified, and with a capital letter.

The biblical word Shoa (<breve>‡‰), also spelled Shoah and Sho'ah, meaning "calamity" in Hebrew (and also used to refer to "destruction" since the Middle Ages), became the standard Hebrew term for the Holocaust as early as the early 1940s.[1] Churban Europa, meaning "European Destruction" in Hebrew (as opposed to simply Churban, the destruction of the Second Temple), is also used. Many Roma (or 'Gypsy') people, who were also targeted during the Holocaust, use the word Porajmos, meaning "devouring".

Shoa is preferred by many Jews and a growing number of Christians and other people due to the theologically offensive nature of the original meaning of the word holocaust as a reference to a sacrifice to God and also due to scholarly insistence that this largely archaic meaning somehow tilts the present meanings. There is also concern that the particular significance of the Holocaust would be lessened as use of the term becomes increasingly widespread in the latter half of the 20th century to refer generically to any mass killings such as the Rwandan Genocide and the actions of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia as 'holocausts'. The Armenians have long used the term in reference to their persecution by the Ottoman empire during World War I.

-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Wright AIA <mwaia at yahoo.com>
Sent: Oct 28, 2005 10:02 AM
To: pynchon-l at waste.org
Subject: Hopeless Holocaust

Howdy all,
I think (FWIW) that Pynchon intended to foster complex non-standard
moral judgements in his readers. Few subjects trigger more
straightforward, and more broadly shared, moral conclusions as the
Holocaust. Auschwitz is absolute, and trumps — always. IMO it was a
sound artistic choice for P to treat the Holocaust by reference,
inflection, infusion, and indirection. The Holocaust is there in the
story and the text, but it is treated in a way that illuminates the
moral complexities of our civilization for an informed adult reader.

Fewer and fewer of us share the basic data about the military and about
WWII that was common in the 1960's and early '70s, which is one reason
why Weisenburger is so helpful. We are not "informed" in quite the same
way that P could count upon in 1973. Cervantes, muttering up there in
the chilly pantheon, also curses our ignorance.

other issue:
I can't find the reference, alas, but I believe that the V-2 engine
fired for about 30 seconds. (I used to know these things...)

Mrk


		
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