Pynchon and babies

[matthew.percy at utoronto.ca]

I recently finished re-reading _V._, actually, and there is an 
interesting section regarding kids - primarily, Esther's pregnancy and 
the discussion regarding abortion and the morality of abortion between 
Esther and Slab...  Difficult section to incorporate into my 
understanding of _V._ for several reasons:
1)  Much of _V._ to this point has been about the objectification of 
human beings within the twentieth century, and the attendant loss of 
humanity, for example, Profane's discussions with crash test dummies 
about Auschwitz, WWII, the holocaust; McClintic Sphere's comment that : 
"What happened after the war? That war, the world flipped.  But come '45 
and they flopped.  Here in Harlem they flopped.  Everything got cool - no 
love, no hate, no worries, no excitement" - a state  seemingly indicative 
of a lack of humanity, feeling, community which Sphere tries to 
counteract with "keep cool, but care";  Most interestingly, the position 
in ch. 11:
	Manhood on Malta thus became increasingly defined in terms of 
rockhood.  This had its dangers for Fausto.  Living as he does much of 
the time in a world of metaphor, the poet is always acutely conscious 
that metaphor has no value apart from its function; that it is a device, 
an artifice.  So that while others may look on the laws of physics as 
legislation and God as a human form with beard measured in lightyears and 
nebulae for sandals.  Fausto's kind are alone with the task of living in 
a universe of things which simply are, and cloaking that innate 
mindlessness with comfortable and pious metaqphor so that the "practical" 
half of humanity may continue in the Great Lie, confident that their 
machines, dwellings, streets and weather share the same human motives, 
personal traits and fits of contrariness as they.
	Poets have been at this for centuries.  It is the only purpose 
they do serve in society: and if every poet were to vanish tomorrow, 
society would live no longer than the quick memories and dead books of 
their poetry.  (305)

2) The discussion of Esther's abortion seems to be Pynchon's attempt to 
exemplify how 20th c. humanity objectifies one another, via Esther's 
debate 3with Slab:
	"It's murdering your own child, is what it is."
	"Child, schmild.  A complex protein molecule, is all."
	"I guess on the rare occasions you bathe you wouldn't mind using 
Nazi soap made from one of those six million Jews."  (331)

In reading this passage, I felt acutely aware of why so many of my female 
friends dislike Pynchon.  Granted, Pynchon seems to  expect the reader to 
sympathize with  Esther in this argument (and with the women in the 
novel, rather than the men - see Rachel's relationship with Profane) but 
it still seems like a coldly male proposition here...  Given that _V._ 
attempts to deal with (amongst other things) the subjugation 
of/objectification of women (and others) by  a totalizing male European 
gaze/ideological state apparatus/technology/phallogocentric 
dominant historiography/substitute your fave theory, I find this section 
extremely problematic, as it seems to reinscribe the maleness it wants to 
attack.  How?  Well, Pynchon's (re: Esther's) slightly pro-life position 
aside seems kinda misogynist to me.  (I'm sure you can argue historical 
context here, or that Pynchon 
wasn't attempting to attack a male-dominated society, but such an 
argument necessarily reifies a misogynist perspective- we're reading the 
novel here, in this moment, not in 1960; and if Pynchon isn't attacking 
maleness of society, he's definitely participating in it.)   I think it's 
fairly obvious to say that Pynchon's representations of women are 
somewhat flawed (despite the intentions of his text); oftentimes, he 
seems to reinforce what he satirizes (the treatmnent of women by the 
whole sick Crew, for example).  

This isn't to say that Thomas Pynchon isn't worthy of study or 
women-hating; it's just to point out some difficulties in Pynchon's first 
novel.  I wouldn't be writing this otherwise-  I think _V._ is still a 
fine book (for the most part), but that any study of it should 
acknowledge its limitations.

That said,  I was wondering if anyone could recommend any studies of 
race/gender representations within Pynchon to me.  It'd be greatly 
appreciated.

I'm fairly certain I'm about to get flamed to death for this,

Matt

On Fri, 25 Oct 1996, Penny Padgett wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> Chrissie Jolley's description of TRP as "a doting father" and my
> own recent entry into the world of parenthood has caused me to
> reflect on the appearance of babies and children in Pynchon's work.
> 
> I can't recall anything having to do with kids in V., and I can
> summon up only a couple of things in GR.  (One is "The Gross Suckling,"
> which I like a lot, and the other is the "Sunshine" section, which
> has always intrigued me and about which I wrote my first post to this
> list in 1990.)  It is in _Vineland_ that babies really become prominent:
> there are many lovely passages about Zoyd and Prairie (my favorite is
> Zoyd's "belated realization" that he "would, would have to, do anything
> to keep this dear small life from harm"). 
> 
> We don't know when Pynchon became a father, but the passages in _Vineland_
> ring so true that I suspect it must have been around then.  I'll be 
> interested to see how fatherhood continues to inform his fiction, though
> there may not be many opportunities in a story about Mason & Dixon.
> 
> Penny
>