Benny's job

[Terrance]

jbor wrote:
> 
> ----------
> >From: <lycidas2 at earthlink.net>
> 
> > What "Otherness" in general?
> >
> > The paranoid white affluent and middle class American 50s
> > "Otherness"?
> 
> No, this would be the self-perceived and -proclaimed "Centre".
> 
> > Is Esther the "other"?
> 
> She perceives her own "otherness" and attempts to renounce or rectify it.
> She aspires to the "Centre" by getting that nose job. Schoenmaker knows what
> it's about ("cultural harmony" 103.bottom). And, I think it's safe to assume
> on the strength of this, so does Pynchon.
> 
> > Or is the faceless delinquent the "other"?
> 
> There are many "others"; but only one "Centre".
> 
> >
> > "Otherness"?
> 
> A by-product of ethnocentrism, cultural & social hegemony, assimilationism
> etc. For example, the sort of mentality which thinks it somehow apt that
> Vietnamese *people* be analogised as cannibalistic alligators. Or Holocaust
> victims as dodoes. &c.
> 
> >
> > Isn't it fair to say that you are also attributing this
> > "otherness", whatever it may be, to Pynchon? To something he
> > intends?
> 
> By virtue of the valencies and visibility vouchsafed to a vast variety of
> ethnicities -- both in _V._ and elsewhere -- I think it both viable and
> valid to venture such a viewpoint.
> 
> > Also, Pynchon is working off stereotypes.
> 
> Perhaps you had better explain this. I think Pynchon's texts subvert -- at
> the very least problematise -- ethnic (and other) stereotypes.

Your definitions of "centre" and "otherness" are only Bobs
floating on the surface. Perhaps we can dive deeper.
However, I cannot be party to this thread if you cannot stop
baiting the Holocaust and Hollander Hook. I think one of
things to consider here is how the text subverts and how the
text problematizes ethnic (and other) stereotypes and how
the multiple personae in V. and the ironies in V. complicate
how the text problematizes and subvert stereotypes. I don't
think the ideas expressed, the ironic dialogues in
particular, can be reduced to a simple didactic message. For
example, P has positioned the "other" as an ironic tourist
or foreigner within a culture as commentator on that culture
and P is playing with the identity of the historian as
commentator and author of His-story.  This is complicated by
the carefully constructed and researched language, where the
politico-historic subtext is couched in a serio-comic
writing style that constantly plays with its own claim to
seriousness, and at times, makes its own jokes serious. All
this careful and playful writing cannot be processed so
transparently and labeled as "centre" vs. "other" or
disposed of as "a by-product of ethnocentrism, cultural &
social hegemony, assimilationism." I read Paul's old posts
on Augustine. P's fiction is not a history of, is not a
fable about, but a fiction of and about Death and Sin. To
me, P sets out not to right the wrongs of Bad history but to
write a fiction that exposes the repressed stories so that
we may rediscover our humanity in all of our repressed
diversities.  


http://mama.indstate.edu/users/primus/html/amos_moses.html