feminized Vineland

[MASCARO at humnet.ucla.edu]

Al W. writes:
>
>At 03:17 PM 5/29/96 PST, MASCARO at humnet.ucla.edu wrote:
>>I strongly agree, and that's why I think that in VINELAND TP develops a very 
>>different textual surface for his prose. and a different trajectory for his
>plot: Much 
>>less phallic, less linear, less projectile oriented, and much
>more--female--if that 
>>other suff is--male.  I think it's his mea culpa for all that boy
>talk--male perceptions, 
>>male concerns--in the previous work.  And IMO he gets it right.
>
>A turn from GR, maybe, but I think Pynchon at least took a stab at feminine
>issues earlier, with V.  If GR can be considered phallic, then V has, if not
>a vagina-centricity, a womb metaphor at its base, a focus on
>regression/convergence to the womb.


I agree w/ your basic point about V.; however, the approach to those issues is still, it 
seems to me, in the same mode (what we are calling--male--or--phallic), whereas in 
VINELAND, to me, he has created a better fit between the style and substance of 
those issues.  The prose surface of VINELAND is very different from V.'s, and so 
are the architectonics of the whole book.

john m