GRGR (1): Wayward Thoughts and Forshadowings (pp. 3 - 7)

[Ghetta Life]

Yes, the Crystal Palace was the centerpiece of the Great Exposition of 1851 
in London, meant to exhibit industrial, military and economic superiority of 
Great Britain.  It was destroyed by fire in 1936, obviously before WW2, and 
thus this one is symbolic as you've noted.  I think we can also link the 
1851 exhibit to the Paris Exposition of 1900 in which Henry Adams 
encountered the Dynamo Madonna, heavily referenced in the novel Pynchon 
wrote previous to GR.  So, in a sense, the Dynamo has returned to destroy 
its industrial cathedral.

Ghetta

>From: jporter <jp3214 at earthlink.net>
>
>"The crystal palace" must refer, at least, to the same structure in London:
>
>	http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crystal_Palace
>
>But I can't help thinking that it's also a reference to Dostoevsky's "Notes 
>from Underground", which, from a reactionary perspective, also envisioned 
>the collapse of the Crystal Palace and what it represented- modernism, 
>rationalism, science, etc., all of the liberal, bourgeois notions of 
>progress that went along with modernism, .

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