GRGR Finale Re: Homophobia in GR?

[jbor]

I don't think it is at all unreasonable to take as a hypothetical starting
point for interpretation of the novel that Pynchon himself is not a bigot,
is not concerned with perpetuating existing stereotypes, and that therefore
prejudiced or negative attitudes towards homosexuality, tribal African
cultures, women, drug users, non-Christians, and other minority groups
and/or individuals are *not* offered by or consolidated in the text. So
prominent are the stereotypes against and persecution of many or all of
these groups, both in the popular and historical imaginations, that it would
seem much more likely to me that he would have altogether avoided dealing
with such characterisations and subject matter unless he had been concerned
to address them in some depth, and that he has some sort of point to make.

Readings which appear to isolate and see implicit vilification of one or
another of these groups appear to me to be coming at the text with such
prejudices and stereotypes already in place:

> Rather, finding
> interesting not only the prevalence of homosexual characters, but also
> the implicit to outright homosexual stereotypes used (associations with
> death, disease, sterility, on one hand; S&M, pederasty, camp on the
> other), but giving Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow the (seeimingly warranted)
> benefit of the doubt that such stereotypes were not being used
> unthinkingly, perhaps maliciously, even (cf. race, maybe gender, here),
> one wonders, well, why use 'em, why risk 'em?

That early scene featuring Pudding and Katje, or the later episodes with
Slothrop and Greta, Slothrop and Bianca &c, beg the question of why this
reader has seen a need to single out the homosexual liaisons alone as
indicative of such associations. Even Roger and Jessica's affair is carried
on in a house in the "stay-away zone, under the barrage balloons" in a town
to the south-east of London (41.28); and I wonder if the sexual excitement
of their trysts isn't being enhanced by the constant imminence of death --
particularly for Jess (53.4) -- as the rockets continue to fall nearby, as
much so as Blicero's "nihilistic [...] pleasure" at the same sort of
prospect from a misfire seems to enhance the sexual tension of der
Kinderofen game back in Holland (96-7).

Furthermore, the manner in which the liaison between Weissmann and Enzian in
the Sudwest is depicted actually overturns the stereotype as it is the youth
who freely initiates the sexual act between the two men (100). A subversion
of the expected power dynamic is repeated in that final scene with Gottfried
and Blicero as well (721-4).

A few -- a very few -- critics have also seen the need to conjecture about
the putative carelessness or malice of Pynchon's depictions of race, gender
and sexuality in *GR*. I would contend that the mooted flaws therein are in
the reader's eye only: the symptom of an unwillingness or inability to read
the *whole* text in a clear-sighted and open-minded manner, to enact that
"suspension of disbelief" so necessary for true insight and intellectual and
spiritual growth.

best


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    "Only when you can overcome the difficulty of changing yourself
               can you change the people around you."

                                Nelson Mandela (Sydney, 4 Oct 2000)


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