Subversive Pynchon?

[LARSSON at vax1.mankato.msus.edu]

"In any case, there are novels contemporary with and prior to V. that are
 just as if not more formally experimental than V. and they too have
been absorbed by institutional curriculae the voraciousness of which
don't allow much time or space for real novelty or subversiveness.  But
maybe I'm just a cynic who's sick of university.  In what sense, Andrew/Don/
anyone else/ do you really think that V. remains "subversive" rather than,
say, 'a sixties novel'.  For example, are the text's sexual politics
still 'subversive' in the wake of the excoriations of the sort of Marcusian-
brand of politics which seems to influence V.?        (Personally, I still
like Marcuse as much as I will always like Pynchon, I'm just wondering
what you think since your post was so compelling.)"

Thanks for the comments.  Speaking *only* for myself, I used the word
"subversive" with some trepidation and only in the context of the "subversion"
of certain fixed approaches to writing/reading novels (along the lines
of what Samuel R. Delany calls "protocols of reading").  As to *political*
subversion, I'm afraid that I tend to share your cynicism.  As more than one
person has remarked, with all that subvertin' (whether it's Pynchon,
Roseanne, Madonna, or just about anything else) going on, you'd think the
Revolution would have arrived by now!  As to the reading--there was a
tendency in early Pynchon crit. (or reviews at least) to see him as a
"black humorist" along the lines of a classier Terry Southern or the like.
I do think his output has shown there's much more going on, but yes he's
not the Messiah (and would be the first to admit it!).

(Actually, if there *is* a subversive writer out there, it might be Delany.
What else could you say of a black, gay science fiction writer who's also
a post-structuralist critic?)

--Don Larsson, Mankato State U., MN