MD/GR

[3DEM11 at QUCDN.QueensU.CA]

Paul Makin, what the fuck do you mean by: "we wouldn't expect
a male gynecologist to have the same view of female anatomy as the
average lech.  But there's a place for each type in our imperfect world."

Does an open book always call to mind a woman's spread legs? And why, I
wonder, would one feel so comfortable to use this metaphor on this list?
Who are "we," buddy?
sheesh.
I think it would be easy enough to say that Keith does need to re-read
M&D to catch the beautiful writing, to catch the tensions emerge as smooth
and striated space encounter each other and fold into one another as the line

slithers on.  M & D  raises comparisons with Absalom, Absalom! --with the
transmission of some ancient curse and with the "high and impossible destiny
of the United States" (Faulkner). They share some of the same images: the
tangle of lines vs. the dividing line (in AA's case, of the ledger--which,
given Pynchon's attention to economics, does metaphorically occur in M&D).
And both texts are haunted by the might-have-beens, by both future and past,
and by the sense (at least in Mason's case) of "being doomed to live."
In a way Rebekah haunts Mason like Charles Bon haunts Judith....and conjures
the "invisible imprints" of an absent beloved's thighs (Faulkner again)...
Which I'm sure "we" can all relate to...wretched because left with only an
invisible trace.

So, we are back to spread thighs. But, watch those gynecology metaphors.
And, recall that this ever-so-learned profession emerged in the U.S. on
the backs of black female slaves who were bought and experimented upon
(just about the time M & D takes place).
No place in the world for them, I don't think.
Dana