GRGR Finale Re: Homophobia in GR?

[jbor]

monroe:
>
> Gee, kids (jbor, Mackin', packin' AND snackin') I don't know how often
> I('ll?) have to (re)state this for you, but ... don't recall anybody
> calling Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow "homophobic" here, not quite
> sure just who you all are responding to

Well, there was that post from "Andy" some time back, which millison has
presented as evidence twice now, and you yourself *did* ask ...

... but find it interesting just why you should want to foreclose any
discussion of a/the/any topic ... why the mere mention of the word should
occasion such out and out defensiveness from you ... the virulent denials
... and I at least (or possibly "we") still await that Grand Reading of
Homosexuality in GR which you seem to be Leading Up To vis a vis the
"negative [...] homosexual [i.e. 'homophobic' -- seems a reasonable
clarification] stereotypes" You [have] Submit[ted] that Pynchon
is[/was/could be] "risking" ... yada yada

How does it *feel* to be "badgered", professor?


> (maybe some o' them "critics"
> that have been mentioned, but, alas, not named here?  Bibliography,
> please, so's we can follow up, 'cos it's obviously of interest to
> someone ELSE out there as well ...)

Both Molly Hite and Thomas Schaub seemed disturbed by the apparent moral
ambivalence of *GR* (back in the early 80s at least). Hite detected in the
novel a "refusal to stand aloof from the characters" which has implications
for the "value system of the novel" in that it "does not condemn any of its
characters". She sees the "narrator" of the text as "refusing to take a
transcendent perspective on the action." Schaub similarly detects a
"detachment of values", and assigns this as "Pynchon's unwillingness to
attach his values to character or plot", which causes "indirection and
ambiguity" for the reader. (Hite, *Ideas of Order*; Schaub, *The Voice of
Ambiguity*)

millison seems to have a finger on the pulse of how "quite a few articles in
Pynchon Notes, among other pubs, have discussed these issues over the
years." Perhaps it Might pay to Badger That "someone ELSE", for A Change.

> , question is, how IS TRP, GR USING
> homosexuality?  'Cos it certainly, pointedly IS, at a time when
> homosexuality was certainly, pointedly being asserted, coming out of
> that closet, if you will.  Now, if you don't want address the issue,
> answer the question, whatever, well, fine, but there's no need to
> constantly, willfully misunderstand it, twist it around, in order to
> cast aspersions on anyone here (or, for that matter, elsewhere).

Seems to me you went from the statement that Blicero and Gottfried were the
*"only[*] major characters with a homosexual relationship in GR" to the
diametrically opposite extreme of "finding interesting [...] the prevalence
of homosexual characters" in the novel, with nary a smidgeon of change in
*your* approach to the topic. Is all. Not "casting aspersions" ...
nasturtiums ... floral tributes of any kind ... merely interested in why ...
yada yada (you know the drill: it's yours, after all ... )

Seems to me that I (and others, Perhaps, so, "We ... ?") *have been*
"[A]ddress[ing] the [I]ssue". In, perhaps, Some Detail. But, hey, hey,
"don't want address" [sic], "twist", "misunderstand", let alone
"wil[l]fully" ... puh-leeeeze!

; )

> But
> "novels," literature, "the writing of," "highly literary," "for grown up
> educated readers" (where? quick, before they get away ...), not
> responsible to, for, I don't know, ethics, politics, whatever, " a
> purely literary call" (and what the hell might THAT mean)?  "And it
> clearly follows that textual analysis in the effort to prove any thesis
> along these lines is a totally redundant nonstarter"--???  You guys
> former Ayn Rand fans or something?  Jeez ...
>