P's Mothers

[Judy Panetta]

Why misogynist and not misanthropic?

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org]On
Behalf Of Terrance
Sent: Tuesday, October 16, 2001 1:13 AM
To: pynchon-l at waste.org
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.