Pynch and homosexuals

[Thomas Vieth]

I think you are confusing author and narrator here. Sure, there is a big 
gender issue in TRP's work (eg, the White Goddess issue...to be very 
rough: the good old days of mother rule w/love, peace and understanding 
vs. the technocratic patriarchy of our own day leading to destruction, 
violence and death), but it is just one of many representative 
dichotomies that - as I have stated before a couple of month ago - IMO 
are to be overcome by transcendance.

Now, the issues you refer to are certain specificities of the work in 
question - GR. I don't think they truely reflect the opinion of the 
author (or do they?). IMO they are tools in the art of writing - here, 
to convey certain themes that are essential to the core of GR, that is: 
the way toward destruction, death and violence that is apparantly 
inherent to technology which brings us full circle back to the gender 
AND sexuality issue from above.

Mythology and history are closely related in TRP'S work esp. GR. And 
mythology doesn't go w/o gender and sexualtity issues which seem to be 
archetypal in the mother goddess and her son/lover who from time 
immemorable stand for life and fertility in general. S&M fit in just 
fine because of the power question in the tension between the mother 
goddess and her son/lover, for instance, Ishtar and Tammuz of the 
Babylonian variety. All of this in not only essential for GR but also 
for V.. 

Now think where this leaves homosexuality...Probalbly on the level of 
Gilgamesh and Enkidu who seek but fail to achieve immortality, even 
though this pair of archetypal characters have to be seen on more levels 
of meaning than that, but for this issue that one level clearly 
suffices.

Thomas Vieth
Down with Triolahidi
Long live Hollerodullyo


----Original Message Follows----
From:	"Gershom Bazerman" <bennyprofane at hotmail.com>
To:	pynchon-l at waste.org
Subject: Pynch and homosexuals
Date:	Mon, 28 Jul 1997 09:39:36 PDT

I recall previous discussions where we dealt with the P-list as a boy's 
club, as well as previous discussions dealing with P-scholarship as a 
boy's club, but an issue that we've only touched on is Pynchon as a 
homophobic author. I knew I was a Pynchon-phile before I knew I was 
bisexual, and to be quite honest, one of the hardest things for me  deal 
with in terms of my sexuality was he realization that the author who had 
more than almost anyone else defined my identity could be homophobic. 
But, a moderately close reading of _GR_ seems at least to me to ofno 
other alternative. TRP consistantly links homosexuality to sterility and 
death. He seems mildly sympathetic towards pedophiles and S&M and just 
about every other form of sexual "deviance" but homosexuality. Witness 
the gay prison camp. Or the flittish camp superficiality of Clive 
Mossmon. At one point, Pynchon does talk about "real love" between men 
in the trenches, but it seems utterly nonsexual.
	I know that I'm rambling and incoherent and spelling everything wrong, 
but I hope that I can spark some discussion.
	
--Gershom Bazerman

PS If there are any other queer TRP  I'd like to know by private e-mail, 
because it seems to me that gay Pynchon readers would be even more 
scarce than female ones....


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