Roger, Jessica and all things Queer.

[Tom Stanton]

Wayne A. Loftus wrote:
> However, setting Jessica and Roger's relationship in the context 
> of healthy hetero counterpoint to all of this insanity doesn't seem
> particularly helpful to me...Human sexuality, of whatever type, seems very
> "debased" here, frought with perversities and perils (E-coli really the
> least among them).  

Well said, but in a novel where no one has a "normal" sexual and/or
love relationship, the war-time parody of love between Roger/Jessica
is the least jarring for some of us more staid hetro/breeder types.
I don't think it's by accident that Roger/Jessica are contrasted
in the next section by Blicero/Katje/Gottfried and the Hansel & Gretel
piece with its cross-dressing and the cage.

> Enzian, also, is given to homosexual relationships, and, for me at least, is
> the only truly sympathetic character in the novel.

Agreed. Yet Enzian seems to have risen above the need for physical love
by the time the narrator has him chasing after 00001. 

I don't think Pynchon is homophobic, but he also is not a fan. Most of
the references I can find are not very flattering, & even the more
tender
moments with Gottfried are overshadowed by Blicero's presence. 

I think it was Diana York who pointed out Pynchon would have written
within the prejudices of his time. Given the gestation (1963-71), the
themes of oppressed blacks (Enzian) against a military/industrial com-
plex (Them), supported by a perverse society (Blicero/Pointsman), and 
countered only by scattered resistance (Slothrop/Roger), it should be
no surprise that Pynchon's homosexual characters are alternately bitchy
and/or perverse, even when one of them is the Lamb himself.