BtZ42 this section

[Mark Kohut]

Possible Shakespearian-like bit re Oven and holocaust words in this chapter:

it is also the chapter in which this sentence appears:" Tonight he feels
the potency
of every word: words are only an eye-twitch away from the things they stand
for".

Accidental that it is here in this chapter? You tell me.

On Mon, Jun 20, 2016 at 4:40 PM, Chris v <traditionalgb at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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> 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>
>> 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>
>> 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>
>> 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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