A Note on Genre

Mon Oct 9 09:38:04 CDT 2000

Before we become too obsessive about identifying V's genre, it seems prudent to
point out that literary genres aren't all-or-none categories; they're fuzzy
sets.  Unadulterated examples are rare, and even among classic works it's hard
to find many pure specimens. (Take Euripides's Medea, for example. Sure, it's a
tragedy. But, especially for modern audiences, it also contains familiar
elements of  revenge tragedy, psychological thriller, woman-on-the-edge
melodrama, and tale of the macabre.)

Mark Twain's "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" (to name a novel that
is probably not sufficiently appreciated as an influence on TRP) is a splendid
example of the picaresque. But it is also, to varying degrees: a satire on
injustice and inequality (not so much in Dark Age Europe as in the post-Civil
War U.S.), an early example of sci-fi, a lampoon-parody of Sir Thomas Mallory, a
mock-heroical Arthurian romance, a utopian fantasy, and an apocalyptic
nightmare. (In short, a pastoral, satirical, tragicomical. . .whatever, to
paraphrase a distinguished Danish critic of dramatic genres.) V strikes me as a
similarly stuffed grab-bag.

pynchon-l-digest wrote:

> pynchon-l-digest       Monday, October 9 2000       Volume 02 : Number 1470
>
> Re: V.V.(1) Benny Oedipus
> Re: A moment of silence
> Re: VV (1): Commentary I - Questions of Genre
> Re: VV (1) - More fun with the Qabalah, 2 of 2
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Date: Sun, 08 Oct 2000 21:46:20 CDT
> From: "David Morris" <fqmorris at hotmail.com>
> Subject: Re: V.V.(1) Benny Oedipus
>
> The right hand is the hand of blessing.  It is the clean hand, the one eaten
> from (as opposed to the left, the one used to wipe the anus).  The right is
> the hand extended in good will.  This phrase, 'the son of my right hand,'
> does not carry the meaning of the Father's control, its primary message is
> blessing, from the elect father to the elect son.
>
> >From: "s~Z"
> >
> >If 'Benny' is a diminuitive of 'Benjamin,' this points to Jacob's youngest
> >son who was born as his mother Rachel died.* Before her death, she named
> >him 'Benoni,' which means 'the son of my sorrow,' but Jacob renamed him
> >'Benjamin' which means 'the son of my right hand.' Pynchon renames him
> >'Benny' which means 'son of my yo-yo hand.'
> _________________________________________________________________________
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> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Sun, 08 Oct 2000 21:51:48 CDT
> From: "David Morris" <fqmorris at hotmail.com>
> Subject: Re: A moment of silence
>
> >From: "Ben McLeod" that foul CD will meet with a most vicious end in the
> >garage, so horrible that Amnesty International will avert it's collective
> >eyes.
>
> Are you going to yell "FAGOT" at it over and over?  The Horror!
>
> Don't let the repair man take it away for burial.  Even dead it is a
> beautiful contraption.  I've stll got my latest deceased hard-drive to play
> with.  The precision of its workings is/was amazing.
>
> DM
>
> _________________________________________________________________________
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>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 9 Oct 2000 01:16:11 EDT
> From: JBFRAME at aol.com
> Subject: Re: VV (1): Commentary I - Questions of Genre
>
> In a message dated 10/08/2000 10:02:51 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
> mwaia at yahoo.com writes:
>
> <<
>  the moVement oV a Yo-Yo describes an ellipse, sort of.
>
>  caution. aVoid the inclination to see a surplus of symbolical Vee's in
>  V.  This is a Street (if not a slipery slope, or even two describing
>  the form of, oh my GOD, a Vee) that ends nowhere, and leads nowhere.
>   >>
> Yeah, but... it's not always an ellipse.  It goes down & then up -- in a
> different place.  It's like when you make a V on paper -- well, you know --
> uh ... .
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Mon, 09 Oct 2000 01:52:25 -0400
> From: Terence <lycidas2 at earthlink.net>
> Subject: Re: VV (1) - More fun with the Qabalah, 2 of 2
>
> Jewish Mysticism  is very, very, very, very important to
> GR.  Scholem was TRP's source. His book, "Major Trends In
> Jewish Mysticism" is a beautiful series of lectures. It was
> his life's work, his great passion, he dedicated the text to
> Benjamin. To read his lectures, they are so organized, so
> clear, so clean, so unlike so much of the language burdened,
> jargon twisting critical nonsense of today. They are worth
> reading. It's fascinating, you won't be able to put it down.
>
> As Gershom Scholem points out in "Major Trends",  "Mysticism
> is a definite stage in the historical development of
> religion and makes its appearance under certain well defined
> conditions." Mysticism does not emerge as a religious
> posture when men live in a mythical present. Nor does it
> develop in the early stages of religious history when a
> chasm between the world and the divine realm is experienced
> and man accepts this fate finding comfort in prayer and in
> the word of God. This acceptance and the comfort of prayer
> is portrayed favorably in GR. However, the quest for a unio
> mystica is treated unfavorably in GR. We find a whole body
> of references to Merkabah mysticism, the book of Zohar,
> Lurianic Kabbalah, Sabatai Zevi's Messianic movement, as
> well as a plethora of Christian popularizations, which, as
> Bloom says, "compounded Kabbalah with a variety of
> non-Jewish notions, ranging from Tarot cards to the Trinity.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> End of pynchon-l-digest V2 #1470
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