Gore Vidal on TRP gay?

[Paul Mackin]

Jason W responds to Charles S:

----------
From: 	Jason Witherspoon[SMTP:arzachel at SIRIUS.COM]
Sent: 	Wednesday, February 26, 1997 6:26 PM
To: 	Charles_Sligh at BAYLOR.EDU; pynchon-l at waste.org
Subject: 	Re: Gore Vidal on TRP gay?

At 2:12 PM 2/26/97, Charles_Sligh at BAYLOR.EDU wrote:
>By the wayside:  for a most interesting reading of TRP and homosexual
>themes,
>see Gore Vidal's characterization of TRP as "homophobic."
>
>The context--as always with Vidal--makes this remark intriguing.
>Vidal couches this quip within a mix of reservation and admiration for
>TRP.
>
>(Something like "_GR_'s scope indicates Pynchon has set his sights on
>the
>godhead" and Vidal's hopes that the work will not fall into the clutches
>of
>the academy.  No such luck.)

Well, he is, & quickly apologetic about it as well.  He accuses the G-men
who offed Dillinger off "faggotry" & then goes on to say something like
"and I'm not talking about *real* physical love between men, like in the
trenches of Passchendale"  (sorry, don't have my index handy).

So, uh, is that homophobic?  I dunno, is being repulsed by Republican
and/or G-men homosexuals homophobic?  Beats me (& they probably will!
pah-dump-bump).

Have to say the question of Pynchon and homosexuals intriques me.
So much so that I kept a mid-seventies piece Vidal wrote about
Pynchon in The New York Review. The thing I remember most
vividly about the article was the reference to "rosebud," not least of
all because it was so cryptic, there being the suggestion that Vidal
himself was somehow indirectly implicated in Pynchon's use of the word.
Gore seemed slightly hurt he was not given credit. It didn't seem (to me
at least) that the reference was to the Marian-Davies revelation that Vidal has
been said to be responsible for, but I could be wrong. Pynchon certainly
does not use the word precisely in its Daviesonian sense. Will try to find the article tomorrow and reread it. Hope I am not making a mountain out of a molehill and will not have to apologize in the morning.


Jason's juxtaposition of the two scenes really resonates for me.
To what extent is the latter scene  Pynchon's attempt to compensate for, balance,  the earlier scene which he felt he needed either for some kind of literary shock value or possibly some more hidden, mysterious purpose? 
Or you could turn the question around to have maybe different implications.
This needs and deserves a lot more discussion in my humble opinion.

				P.