pynchon-l-digest V2 #12770

[Doug Millison]

People whose readings of Pynchon are sought after by lots of us readers,
have discussed the Holocaust in Gravity's Rainbow in some depth and nuance,
trying to read and make sense of the way P has treated this subject in the
novel,  a novel which I think a lot of people agree is far from black and
white on just about every bit of content that keeps so many of us coming
back for more.

So it won't get lost in the back and forth, I'll also repeat the book
suggestions from my earlier post, they deal substantively with the
Holocaust in GR and other Pynchon novels:
Gravity's Rainbow, Domination, and Freedom by Luc Herman and Steven
Weisenburger
 Thomas Pynchon and the Dark Passages of History by David Cowart

Not quite sure what's wrong with pointing to something on a page of
Pynchon's novels in response to something somebody posted on Pynchon-L,
especially when one takes care not to call anybody any names, or insult
anybody's appreciation for a great novel, or where anybody gets the right
to tell another P-lister what to say or how to say it, but obviously it's
been awhile since I've been a regular visitor here.

Pokler on pp 432-433  is right in the middle of a concentration (or is it a
"work" camp, or a "death" camp? they're all part of the larger genocide
that we also call the Holocaust) surrounded by dead and dying slave
laborers, a camp that towards the end of the war housed more than a few
Jews along with the rest of the slave laborers who built the rockets.

Thanks, Monte, for the compliment on picking up on the echoes in the
opening pages of rail transportation of Holocaust victims to the camps -
even old rj agreed with that one, until he had to back-track and return to
hating on every post I made, back in the day.

I'm proud  of the acknowledgement from Weisenburger in the 2nd Edition of
his Gravity's Rainbow Companion, and a Contributor credit I had for many
years in  Pynchon Notes.

It's especially  nice to see how many critics have taken up the subject of
the Holocaust in GR with books and articles since I first raised some of
these points in a long-ago group reading in this forum - Pynchon has
obviously given readers and critics much to consider on this subject, no
matter what any P-list bully says is the correct way to read GR. Pynchon
thought it worth his while to pepper his great novel with references to the
Holocaust, to dance around it and right through it, it's a major issue in
GR, and therefore worth discussing in a forum devoted to Pynchon's work,
especially when it is an unmoderated discussion where nobody has the right
to shut anybody else up.
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