GRGR Finale Re: Homophobia in GR?

[Paul Mackin]

On Mon, 11 Sep 2000, jbor wrote:
> 
> 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*)

Wonder which of the various voices would be assigned the task.  "You
will want praise and blame. All right. Slothrop should not be held
accountable for his failure to lead to Counterforce on to Victory when so
many were depending on him. His intractable case of temporal bandwidth
insufficiency was  not something he chose for himself. Weissmann is to be
commended for  trying to break through into the land of pain. Still he
needs to be held  accountable for placing poor Gottfried in the rocket
instead of himself . . . " 

It would only have added to the overall mystery I think.

			P.