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Jed's avatar

IG Farben is like a decoder ring that unlocks the whole covert history of the 20th century

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Andrew H.'s avatar

The number of rabbit holes you can go down just by a quick search is absolutely insane. There's so much shit they have been involved in. I started typing that little footnote and realized I could dedicate an entire essay on them.

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Jed's avatar

They're a major through-line in the book I'm writing about petro-history. I just went back and realized I edited out some of the IG Farben stuff on what I've put online, because I was worried about being redundant and then edited it out of both places. I need to resynthesize it all.

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Kerry's avatar

This is my first time reading the book after being inspired by MSJ. I really appreciate your work it has far, far exceeded all expectations.

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Andrew H.'s avatar

Thank you so much! Means a lot. Especially being mentioned in the same comment as MSJ who basically inspired my entire analysis of this novel and who I wholly believe is one of the greatest living readers and intellects. GR was my favorite novel before I'd even heard of MSJ, but after hearing his podcast, the novel pretty much unlocked itself (along with numerous other novels of the sort).

I hope to keep the analysis strong as the book gets more complex! Glad to have you along.

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Johnny Salazar's avatar

Also wanted to say thank you for your analysis. I stopped my first reading through the book at page 514 and started again. When I get to page 252 I'm going to start again at 514 and read from both places to finish it twice. The beginning has been so much more enjoyable and I'm hoping the rest of the book will be as enlightening. I'm also reading your analysis after each episode and really appreciate your thoughts, I'm too topical (dim) to get the deeper meanings and your words really help to ground things for me.

You and the commenter above mentioned MSJ and a podcast... could you provide me with some more letters for that acronym so I can give the podcast a listen?

Thanks again, looking forward to the rest of your work.

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Andrew H.'s avatar

Of course! I've been having a blast doing these.

MSJ is Michael S. Judge, host of the Death is Just Around the Corner. His podcast has a lot of Pynchon analyses but it's not entirely that. Though most stuff is rooted in the themes of what Pynchon talks about.

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