Gottfried & Blicero

[Dave Monroe]

... a coy little couple, you two.  But, hey, speaking of "removing the plank in
one's own eye," one really ought to be a little Socratic and/or self-reflexive
when claiming that others "read," well, anything, really, "in particular ways in
order to justify their own biases," "ascribing their own good and evil ...
constructions as," well, anyone's.  Ev'rybody's got their "biases," and, yes,
indeed, a reading IS also a writing, an ascribing, and ev'rybody is indeed
rewriting, and not only by citation, paraphrase, you name it, anything they
interpret in the act of interpretation.  "But the Rocket has to be many things
..." (V727, sorry 'bout the lack of Bantam ed. pagination here, don't have the
Companion at hand).  And, indeed, the question is, how, and why ...

So, what is, boys, Pynchon as "beyond good and evil," Nietzschean or otherwise?
Or what?  How, and why?   By the way, not claiming Pynchon as homphobic, my guess
is that he's a Pretty Decent Guy all 'round, but it is interesting how he deploys
undoubtable stereotypes, not to mention aestheticizes the generally abject, at
least in certain contexts (but the rhetoric, poetics 'round G & B also remind me
of the discussion of fascist, protonazi, Nazi discourse, homoerotic
under/overtones thereof, in Klaus Theweleit's Male Fantasies, see esp. Vol. 2,
which is in keeping with the characters ... see also Jean Genet's Funeral Rites?)
...

A few more specific questions as well.  Why is it "important tonight that" G & B
"both be men"?  "Men" in what sense(s)?  Cf. "the colonists" (and note perhaps
that "colon"?  Hm ... cf., also, Cristobal Colon, Cristopher Columbus, "America
was the edge of the World") in that "glass sphere," "they are all men" ... obvious
echo there, but to what effect(s), if not necessarily for what purpose(s)?

And, no, there isn't anything wrong, "intrisically" or otherwise, with "shit,
death, sex, genitalia, penetration, bodily contact, sperm, or what have you"--hey,
you're startin' to sound like me there ...--"life," miraculous or otherwise,
indeed, but it IS interesting that the ostensibly, presumably, allegedly
transcendent in Gravity's Rainbow seems so often associated with death, rather
than life.  Binaries, yes, "excluded middles," yes, and, of course, Pynchon often
INcludes the middles, even in this regard (say, those animate objects we've been
kicking around here), but ...

... but Gottfried, if, improbably, he's survived so far, IS going to die, as, it
seems, will the audience, perhaps even the Manager, @ The Orpheus Theater
(Hades--and cf. the Judaic Sheol on those "faint shadows"?-- that passage through
the underworld, indeed, Euridice, "your idiocy," hm, that funeral procession,
a-and what's in that "mysteriously-canvased trailer rig," by the way (V756)?  And
anyone care to spin out the Rilke here?), and I'm not so sure that armageddon,
apocalypse, nuclear holocaust (that word ...), is quite part of that Sweet Mystery
of Life ...

Paul Mackin wrote:

> Rob--I'm not complaining but you didn't, did you, find anything in my
> whimsical little post from which to conclude that I think P is homophobic
> or racist or sexist?  Actually I think the homoerotic and sadomasochistic
> stuff is the best writing in the book and homophobic in only the most
> transparent stereotypical way. GR is a book for grownups and doesn't need
> to refrain from silly political incorrectnesses.
>
> On Fri, 18 Aug 2000, jbor wrote:
>
> >
> > Yes, I've read the sort of criticism which takes Pynchon on for his supposed
> > homophobia and stereotyping (and racism!) in the novel. But I think that
> > these are critics who have needed to read *GR* in particular ways in order
> > to justify their own biases, and so have gotten all tangled up ascribing
> > their own good and evil (mainly evil) constructions as Pynchon's. If you
> > read the Blicero/Gottfried section as an affirmation of humanity then you
> > needn't run into this cul de sac. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with
> > shit, death, sex, genitalia, penetration, bodily contact, sperm, or what
> > have you anyway. These're all part of the miracle of Life.
> >
> > The extraordinary honesty of the scene is deeply touching imo:
> >
> > "It is important tonight that they both be men." (721.28)
> >
> > I think that, like Gottfried, the reader must "keep himself open, loosen the
> > sphincter of his soul". (722.18)