Pynchon the gentle sadomasochist

[Paul Mackin]

On Sun, 9 Jul 2000, Terrance wrote:

> 
> Do have different books? In my copies Postmodernist Fiction
> (1987) was first, Constructing Postmodernism (1992), as I
> have stated here several times, "corrected" some of the
> problems in the first book. Chapters 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,,10, of
> Constructing Postmodernism (1992) were originally published
> as essays, studies, reviews, between 1979 and 1991, so this
> may account for this?  

Sorry, I cited the wrong date for Postmodernist Fiction. The first
quote I gave was from a still earlier piece. The article was undated but
you can tell from context that it was written about 1977 or 1978. I
haven't even seen the later work you cite. I haven't read Postmodernist
Fiction clear though. Started in quite a while back, then just read that
last love/death chapter this morning. Plenty of lacunae in my
understanding of what McHale is saying. 



 > 
> > 
> > In discussing the use of the second person pronoun as a means of
> > violating the ontological boundaries between writer, reader, and
> > character, McHale comes to the conclusion that the actual subject
> > matter of the passages may be erotic love between the writer and
> > the reader (or text) including appropriate sadomasochistic accompaniments.
> > So that's a little different, isn't it? I don't feel so bad
> > now. Handcuffs and whips may be the images I should be keeping in
> > mind but they are clearly only props.  Pynchon is my playful lover and
> > will do me no harm.
> 
> 
> This is in Postmodernist Fiction (1987) PoMo simulates
> Death....is a laboratory for experiments...oh boy, I'm on my
> knees, lick, the leather, a Pointsman with a plastic penis
> stands over me as I read, reading whip welts and scars and
> reefers and shivers, cut my throat....oh! God, oh!

Yes, an imaginative performance but a critic is entitled to push the
data sometimes if in a good cause. Not that McHale doesn't have plenty
of data--he's read and remembered everything. And death is such a good
cause.   So Pynchonesque. Plus there's that line in the Introduction of
Slow Learner to the effect that when we speak seriousness in fiction we
are ultimately talking about the attitude toward death.  A lot of
resonation.

> > 
> > Incidently McHale, in the second work, gives examples from other writers
> > of this kind of second person pronoun used in making metaleptic love, and
> > I am convinced that the examples for Pynchon are materially less
> > threatening than those for comparable writers.  Other writers address
> > you as bastard and pathetic. Never P. One of the examples from Pynchon was
> > that lovable "Is the baby smiling, or is it just gas? Which do you want it
> > to be?"
> 
> I don't know, after reading Fish on Milton, and McHale on
> Fielding, I feel whipped. So if you doubt Dear, dear, little
> reader, that there is price for your painful paradise just
> look in the reader mirror and read the scars. 
> 
> 
> Beat me
> Hit me
> make it rough
> I just love this Pynchon stuff
> 
He's an old tease.

		P.