author's bios, etc

[Diana York Blaine]

Thank you Roman!  your elegant posting helped me see the irony of my lack
of interest in Pynchon's private life.  I, too, feel who wrote what and
when are important issues to considering when analyzing literature--in
fact my scholarship and pedagogy depend on it. During the last 2 weeks  my
American lit survey course involved reading African-American author
Langston Hughes and then seeing "Looking for Langston," a film about his
homosexuality.  This was news to most students who then struggled in class
discussion to renegotiate their relationship to the poetry with this
(sadly unwelcome) knowledge in mind. We talked at length about whether
it's our business, whether it matters, etc etc etc.  I guess the Pynchon
stuff feels like minutiae, at least comparatively.  But your point is well
taken, and I am looking critically at my own assumptions:  am I
uninterested in the details because he is a straight white male and I
"know what that means"? Talk about totalizing!  Glad for the nudge.
    Speaking of which, even though I have just returned from a Southwest
Airlines flight back from CA (if you have flown them you know what I am
saying), I am so excited to see the discussion of feminism, parenthood and
V. that I can't tear myself away.  Briefly:  in my diss I argue that V. is
not postmodern but looking to reimpose at least one flagging metanarrative
(Lyotard) in order to "shore up our ruins" a la Eliot.  That metanarrative
would be, of course, conventional constructions of gender. V. is a
woman/machine responsible for the destruction of the 20 century--she's
also a mother, and when I saw the discussion of children I of course
thought of Stencil, who is the adult-child-of-a-castrating-bitch (I don't
know if there's a support group for this.  Could be.) Stunningly sexist?
Yes. I think so.  And for good reason.  If the world is as awful as TRP
posits it--and I know y'all probably find his argument as compelling as
I--then the impulse to make stability becomes even more intense than in
periods of relative ease (hence Vineland, which I admit I set down with a
thud and a yuck--please God let Mason Dixon crank!!!!!!).  Attracted to
and disgusted by the mother (and the mother's body) Stencil both can and
cannot approach her for she's forbidden to him as male subject.  (Sorry
about the psychobabble John but it's what my fancy UCLA education learned
me how to do best).  Anyway sorry to go on at length but I am terribly
impressed by the list's members (ac and non-ac alike) and would love
comments. I promise credit when I publish the book!  thanks, Diana