Ethical Diversions

[jd]

There's also Dog Vanya and all the pavlovian sort of tests going on
with the dogs, digging them up out of ruins, etc, which I think is
certainly at least reminiscent of the human experiments that went on
in camps such as Dachau.

On 6/21/06, jbor at bigpond.com <jbor at bigpond.com> wrote:
> On 22/06/2006:
>
> > << So, the Holocaust is something which is occurring offstage in GR,
> > and
> > it's never foregrounded explicitly precisely because the vast majority
> > of
> > characters and narrative vantages wouldn't have known anything about
> > it. >>
> >
> > I think we agree in sum, but isn't this a little circular?  I.e. --
> > or, he
> > created characters with limited knowledge so that he wouldn't have to
> > foreground
> > the Holocaust.
>
> I guess it's sort of the same thing, but probably we do disagree a
> little bit. I'd argue that he wasn't so much worried about the "power
> of taboo" as representing what was and wasn't common knowledge at the
> time. I also think there are some characters who did know (might have
> known) something about what was happening in the death camps (e.g.,
> Pirate, Katje, Blicero, Wim and the Dutch Resistance leaders), and
> Pynchon depicts what was going on in their minds w/r/t that knowledge.
>
> I think the difference between Catch-22 and GR in this regard is
> instructive. In Catch-22 it's as if the Holocaust never happened (for
> the reasons which Heller gave). That's not the case in GR i don't
> think.
>
> best
>
>