Manifestations of Venus

[Jules Siegel]

davemarc wrote:
> 
> Jules writes:
> 
> "The Heroro women
> were not beautiful by our standards. They had huge buttocks --
> grotesque, really, to the modern Anglo-European eye -- and were probably
> the inspiration for the fabled Callipygians, which meant the people with
> beautiful buttocks. This is a problem that many modern black women have
> just had to live with. Their inherited physical beauty is of another
> time and another culture. Ashanti women (and men) had bodies like Roman
> statues -- think of Muhammad Eli, only black as coal. The Masai were
> tall and thin, our basketball stars. I think it is difficult for us to
> realize how physically different the various African peoples were from
> each other."
> 
> On an international list such as this one, it's often unclear what is meant
> when a participant uses words like "our" and "us."  I, for one, do not wish
> to be passively associated as agreeing with the remarks Jules makes in the
> material quoted above.
> 
> davemarc

Why? I meant people of our time and culture. I didn't say it was
impossible. I said it was difficult. How many people on the list are
aware of the differing physical characteristics of African regional
groups -- or world regional groups. Is male (and female, to a great
extent) Anglo-European hung up in the Venus de Milo-to-Playboy body
style image or not? The very fact that Pynchon does not include physical
descriptions of his protagonists in the African sequences, although he
does elsewhere frequently in V, is revealing. Did he not know? Or did he
airbrush it? Is he an occult racist? I know that given the same material
I could have made it clear what these physical differences meant to the
lovers and I would have done it in a way that revealed the beauty that
they saw in each other, especially because it was different from our
(see above) own culturally installed prejudices. He hid from it.

At the same time, the point is well-taken. Cross-cultural references
have to be absolutized or generalized where necessary, just like links.
I'll keep that in mind and I appreciate the insight.
 
-- 
Jules Siegel http://www.caribe.net.mx/siegel/jsiegel.htm
Mail: Apdo. 1764 Cancun QR 77501 Mexico
Street: Green 16 Paseo Pok-Ta-Pok Zona Hotelera Cancun QR 77500 Mexico
Tel: 011-52-98 87-49-18 Fax 87-49-13 E-mail: jsiegel at mail.caribe.net.mx