BtZ42 this section

[Chris v]

I think the most holocaust and concentration camp references occur in a
Thanatz thread towards the end of the novel....

On Monday, June 20, 2016, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:

> It may be true that perceptions of east and west  differed but Pynchon is
> writing in English and knows his primary audience will make these
> connections between the image of ovens and fire and the holocaust.
>
> Elie Wiesel’s current politics may be distorted by the identity politics
> of the Israeli Right and his own horrific experience . The holocaust plays
> heavily into Israeli politics. But there is a long history of Jewish
> dissent against the mistreatment of Palestinians. I am refering to Wiesel
> because his writing was crucial to the western understading of the
> Holocaust. Night was published in French in 1958 and English in 1960.
>
>  To my mind the question under discussion is about why a series of ovens
> and fires, one inside the other, is central to the imagery of this chapter.
> It is impossible for me to imagine P ( the master of layered hypertext)
> writing this chapter with these images without being fully conscious and
> intentional in attempting to summon the holocaust in a loaded mythic form
> to focus on the  psychological implication, the inner dimensions of a
> culture gone mad with delusions of supremacy.  In many ways he is
> broadening the psychological dimensions of that Nazi history to include the
> history of colonialism, collaboration and human war on everything from
> Hereroes to Dodos.
>
> There is an inclination by some to make Fascist  concentration camps
> unique in human history. I feel it is much more realistic to see it as a
> modern industrial version of a long history of similar behavior.
>
>
> > On Jun 20, 2016, at 10:37 AM, rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com
> <javascript:;>> wrote:
> >
> > Part of the reason for that, as Timothy Snyder mentions in Bloodlands
> and Black Earth was that much of that perception was made by the West.
> Those in Ukraine and Belorussia saw a different holocaust but that was
> mostly forgotten (until now), partly due to Stalin and past-war communist
> suppression of jewish deaths by Nazi Germany.
> >
> > Has anyone mentioned Wiesel's support for Netanyahu?
> >
> > rich
> >
> > On Mon, Jun 20, 2016 at 10:19 AM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net
> <javascript:;>> wrote:
> > I think Elie Wiesel’s writing gives a powerful sense of why the ovens
> became the dominant language. Jews were killed in several ways: frequently
> shot, machine gunned into mass graves, bayoneted,  starved, worked to
> death, cold exposure, ‘scientific’ experiments , and after the mass killing
> was already underway Jewish people were murdered via the inexpensive
> unbloody efficiency of gas chambers. But the numbers killed required mass
> disposal of bodies and cremation was the industrial solution. The fires are
> what survivors remember most vividly.  It stank; It turned people into ash,
> made them disappear without trace, or place.  It was the final step in a
> methodical attempt at global genocide, the erasure of a people.
> > Another similarity in this chapter in GR to the events of the Holocaust
> is the difference between Gottfried and Katje. Many Jewish people saw or
> were warned about what was coming, many fled but many were in denial,
> refusing to see what was happening and even cooperating with the
> deportation of other Jews.
> >
> > At any rate, and by whatever mechanism or reason, the language of ovens
> is so common that some who have not looked at the details of the  holocaust
> think most  victims were burned alive. This did happen occasionally but was
> uncommon.
> >
> > For Pynchon it also carries forward into the threat of  Nuclear fire
> enabled by burning rocket fuel ( or bomber fuel), which is where the arc of
> the story is going.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > > On Jun 19, 2016, at 1:16 PM, Richard Romeo <richard.romeo at gmail.com
> <javascript:;>> wrote:
> > >
> > > Why ovens became a metaphor for the Holocaust perplexes me since most
> were already dead before they were placed in them (at least in the death
> camps)
> > > Misappropriation of the word that became conventional wisdom over time
> most likely
> > >
> > > rich
> > >
> > >
> > >> On Jun 19, 2016, at 7:07 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com
> <javascript:;>> wrote:
> > >>
> > >> The Oven chapter. And GR is NOT about the Holocaust AT ALL? Don't
> think that holds up.
> > >> How does the Hansel & Gretel Story work as depth metaphor and there
> are other (is another)
> > >> Great Northern Myth at work.
> > >>
> > >> Why a threesome?
> > > -
> > > Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list
> >
> > -
> > Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
> >
>
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>
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