Pynch and homosexuals

[Vaska]

Joaquin Stick wrote:
>As a straight reader of Pynchon, this is an issue that I almost have to
>feel like I should disqualify myself from commenting upon, but here goes
>anyway: [...]

Will second that, and then proceed, quoting JS once again: 

>It's been a
>while since I've read _Vineland_ but I don't really remember what if any
>take there is in that book on homosexuality. 

No overt treatment, no descriptive scenes as far as I recall: but the
Wheeler-Gates-Vond triangle is VERY explicitly described in terms of
displaced homosexual desire.  At least once in the novel, though I don't
have the page references on me at this moment.

>It does seem fairly notable
>absent in _M&D_ which might be a notable omission in its own right (then
>again, as the author, he is allowed to beat whatever drums he chooses in
>constructing his fictions, especially since he is not a naturalitic
>writers)

Well, the bit Eric quoted some 2-3 weeks ago, with the Vroom matron and her
female black slaves playing out a kind of kinky Persephone of the SA hell
scene [Pluto's wife, she, complete with those pomegranates and all, yet a
willing accomplice in the slavery racket], is both overtly lesbian and just
the sort of "erotic" scene you find in [up-scale?] pornography for straight
men.  Which is one of the reasons I find that episode a little troubling as
far as its contribution to the slavery debate in _M&D_ is concerned.  

Gershom Bazerman:
>> But, a moderately close reading of _GR_ seems at least to me to ofno 
>> other alternative. TRP consistantly links homosexuality to sterility and 
>> death.

I've always felt that in _GR_, and possibly because of the considerable
number of behind-the-scenes homosexuals among the top Nazi bosses who [among
other things] did nothing to stop the attempted extermination of German
homosexuals in those death-camps, Pynchon deliberately deals with *only* the
exlpoitative and emotionally barren forms of homosexuality.  Even in
_Vineland_, the displacement of homosexual desire as fucking via the medium
of Frenesi Gates is definded as a pathetic and misconceived substitute for
men's attempts to *love* one another.

Still, there's a lot more to be thought about on this subject.

Vaska