VLVL2(10) Power to Restore memory

[Bandwraith at aol.com]

In a message dated 12/31/03 10:45:02 AM, lycidas2 at earthlink.net writes:

<< Kinda interesting that the more recent dissertations on VL take this

position. Pynchon is not being compared with Melville or Gaddis or Roth

or Nabokov or even with Delillo, but with Toni Morrison & Co. 


The texts are often ignored to make these silly readings fit together.

VL isn't a feminist novel by any stretch. It's not that Pynchon takes a

traditional position or a conservative male political stance or

something like that, although his novels are decidedly masculine in the

1950's sense and not feminized 1960's androgynous, but his females are

all caught in the same machinery as his males. Henry Adams, as most of

Pynchon's more astute critics recognized long ago, haunts every page

Pynchon writes. >>


Happy New Year to you, too! If you find my reading silly (rather
than just those "recent dissertations") may it at least amuse
you. For myself- I've not read any recent dissertations on Vineland,
so I can't comment on any. 

I'm trying to recall if there are any specifically female thanatoids
mentioned in the text. Although I may be mistaken, I can't. It seems
to be a pretty exclusively male state of being- not that that proves 
anything.

As far as the critics, I never tend to agree with the few I've
glanced at anyway, so, invoking them to discount my assertions 
may be self-satisfying, but probably won't be too convincing 
for me. For what it's worth, citing specific parts of the text
of the novel is something I'd at least be able to check out.

To my understanding, the "glazed baloney" episode was an
entertaining send-up of critics who take themselves a little
too seriously.

respectfully