queerness in Thomas Pynchon

[Andrew Dinn]

Hartwin Alfred Gebhardt writes:

> On Sun, 24 Nov 1996, Tresy Kilbourne wrote:
> 
> >                    But there really isn't any symnpathetic 
> > depiction of homosexual relationships in GR, is there? 
> [...]
> > That leads me to the reluctant 
> > conclusion that in GR, homsexuality is depicted as deviant at best, 
> > life-denying at worst. 

> Not at all. The bottom line is two people making love. As in Enzian and 
> the young(er) Blicero, which for Enzian at least is meaningful enough to 
> evoke the Herero name for god. I don't think TRP makes any distinction at 
> all between homo and hetero love. Only when love becomes embroiled / 
> complicitous / subordinate to power games ....

> h(any-love-is-good-love)g

I'm with hag here. And it's not just that any love is good love it's
also that any sex is just sex whichever way you err, . . . look at it.
Recall that loving the people scene where every possible permutation
is presented. No criticism, no placing one coupling over another. And
even in this mechanical routine of eroticism I seem to recall P finds
room for a little tenderness and kindness, rises above mere
pornography. That is the touchstone. Whether it is a pornographic
exchange - a transaction in the commerce of self-gratification - or
whether the sexual embrace includes an embrace of the other
character(s) in the exchange.

I have been reading Ballard recently and was struck by one of his own
comments on The Atrocity Exhibition (these are printed alongside the
text in the RE Search reprint) to the effect that science is the
ultimately pornography because it attempts to distance and objectify
everything. I agree. And I think Pynchon views sex and sexuality as
pornographic in this light alone, to the extent that they operate by
distancing and objectifying. Gottfried and Blicero's love and its
sexual manifestation may be perverse, but everything, even their role
playing, is part of a shared, mutually acknowledged and accepted
fantasy - one might even say a shared, personal, alternative reality.



Andrew Dinn
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And though Earthliness forget you,
To the stilled Earth say:  I flow.
To the rushing water speak:  I am.