P's Mothers

[barbara100 at jps.net]

Well,  he told me!  Blue in the face again.
Exhausted,
Barbara

----- Original Message -----
From: Terrance <lycidas2 at earthlink.net>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Monday, October 15, 2001 10:13 PM
Subject: Re: P's Mothers


>
>
> barbara100 at jps.net wrote:
> >
> > Okay, how about all of  the GR women together.  Like I said, I'm
big-picture
> > oriented.  I wanna know what they mean all together, as a statement
about
> > Pynchon's 'treatment of women.'  I'm not trying to antagonize you on
this
> > one, Terrance, I seriously don't know what you mean by that.  What big
> > picture do you paint from all the women in GR that you list down there?
>
> Tell you what, ever read the Novel V.?
> I'd like to start with Henry Adams--Virgin/Dynamo.
> Then turn to two mothers in GR. Greta (as a V in GR) and the Aardvark
> Women or Herero Mother.
>
> How about that?
>
> Here is what I posted:
> This was a reply to an essay Doug posted. It was an excellent essay.
>
>
> What do feminists think of Pynchon's women? His Mothers? What can
> explain the Mothers of GR? I can't think of any novelist whose treatment
> of women comes close to P's.
>
>
> What has happened to women and to men in Pynchon's novels.
> Why do they abuse and abandon, sell and  prostitute their own children?
>
> Is it the war? Is it Capitalism? Or something deeper?
>
> It's something religious.
>
> How can we account for Mr. Pynchon's female characters? His mothers? His
> daughters? His witches good and his witches evil?
>
>
>  The mothers want their sons to die in war. Nalline wants this for her
> son. How about that black bitch that murders children?
>
> Under the "present dispensation" the freedom of life is
> thwarted by ritual conditioning to death:
>
> "...mothers and fathers are conditioned
> into deliberately dying in certain
> preferred ways: giving themselves
> cancer and heart attacks...going
> off to fight in the war--leaving their
> children alone in the forest. "
>
> And we know who is playing both roles. The Witch. Death. Blicero.
>
> AND
>
> "Mothers work for Them, they are the policemen of the soul, they make
> children "crack."
>
> "They hand her the orb and scepter, which in this case are grilled pot
> roast and a whip, and the orchestra plays Tristan and Isolde." GR.505
>
> Why Tristan and Isolde? Again, something religious.
>
> This is my thesis:
>
> [[[[[It is because mothers are fertile, mysteriously endowed with god's
> own
> accident of creation. Within the Mother is the great cosmic force. So
> her apostasy is greatest.]]]]]
>
> Gibberish mostly, but I'll clean it up if your interested.