P's Mothers & Why should we kill Daddy?
John Bailey
johnbonbailey at hotmail.com
Sun Oct 21 20:59:22 CDT 2001
I've been thinking about how GR is written as if the reader is male, or at
least how it treats the 'you' in many sections as male (not masculine,
male). Now I just remembered how this para made me feel as if the assumed
reader is 40-something. And there are other parts that seem to be addressing
a North American mindset. Has this been discussed before? I think it's a
complicated issue in GR, but I do think that it's something which, if it's
true, and I'm not sure it is, doesn't continue through to Vineland or M&D,
which are more mature and, probably, cautious works, imho.
>From: "David Morris" <fqmorris at hotmail.com>
>To: lycidas2 at earthlink.net, pynchon-l at waste.org
>Subject: Re: P's Mothers & Why should we kill Daddy?
>Date: Sun, 21 Oct 2001 20:05:21 -0500
>
>Fourty Years,
>
>Moses, the Judaic Father-figure comes to mind. But what was the historic
>case 40 years before this time in the zone?
>
>"because 40 years ago we could not kill them"
>
>Seems to me a vital question re. this text. No answers from here as of
>yet.
>
>DM
>
>
>>From: Terrance
>>
>>"He is the father you will never quite manage to kill. The
>>Oedipal situation in the Zone these days is terrible. There
>>is no dignity. The mothers have been masculinized to old
>>worn moneybags of no sexual interest to anyone, and yet here
>>are the sons, still trapped inside inertias of lust that are
>>40 years out of date. The fathers have no power today and
>>never did, but because 40 years ago we could not kill them,
>>we are condemned now to the same passivity, the same
>>masochist fantasies THEY cherished in secret, and worse, we
>>are condemned in our weakness to impersonate men of power
>>our own infant children must hate, and wish to usurp the
>>place of, and fail....So generation after generation of men
>>in love with pain and passivity serve out their time in the
>>Zone, silent, redolent of faded sperm, terrified of dying,
>>desperately addicted to the comforts others sell them,
>>however useless, ugly or shallow, willing to have life
>>defined for them by men whose only talent is for death."
>>(GR.747)
>
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