Why Sista be messin wit the Devil

[Otto]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Terrance" <lycidas2 at earthlink.net>
Cc: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2003 3:56 PM
Subject: Re: Why Sista be messin wit the Devil

>
> > Well, I did read the Bible too and in all of my copies it's written the
> same way. Dunno what kinda Bible you've got. If you're calling
> Sullivan's reading a misreading I know now where your misreading(s)
> of the novel comes from.
>
> Where is that?
>

Where is what?

>
> >
> > Sullivan is right that Rochelle is rewriting the creation myth.
>
> That's obvious to even those that have never read the bible. Isn't it?
>

And? The point is that the bible is a myth, fiction, or, as we call it,
a narrative. Not the truth.

>
> > Sullivan is right that misogyny in the creation myth is obvious.
>
> I'm not interested in this issue.
>

Your flaw. Pynchon and the postmodernists obviously are.

>
> >
> > And Pynchon is in good company, read John Barth's "Chimera" --
> Pynchon did.
> >
> > Otto
>
> OK, I'll check it out. But please read Sullivan closely.

I did.

Sullivan:
"In his work entitled The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, Jean
François Lyotard defines "postmodernism as incredulity toward
metanarratives" (72). This postmodern "incredulity" results in skepticism
and distrust of the systems that attempt to explain cultural phenomena in
terms of a single, unifying principle; the search for truth and order in
human experience collapses."

> His use of the
> "Master-narrative" is downright silly.

Why?

> The essay is a mess.

I see, the usual "shitty essay"-argument without further reasons why.

> It reads
> like a free-write or scribbled thoughts. Lot od interesting papers might
> come out of it. Like one on Sister R's "anecdotes" (a clever use of the
> word there, and it reveals Sullivan's bias).
> A master-narrative, as Sullivan (ab) uses that word/idea/concept is
> something P  is suspicious of yet surrenders too.

Sullivan:
"Pynchon's most obvious critiques of master-narratives come in the form of
Sister Rochelle's anecdotes. These anecdotes deconstruct various myths.
Myths are master-narratives; they are mere stories that attempt to find
truth in unexplainable phenomena. When myths are accepted and proliferated,
they become mechanisms of control."

The unexplainable phenomenon is the fact that there's a world and we're
living in it.

>
> Sullivan's Master-narratives,
>

Sullivan:
"The master-narratives that the anecdotes address are deconstructed and
exposed for their restrictive nature."

> 1. Myths
> 2. ridiculous generalizations
> 3. courtly love
> 4. Death
> 5. Television (S says, P has an apparent fixation with the Tube)
> 6. Brock Vond's view of the 60s
> 7. Reaganomics (According to S, Reagan's MN and BV's MN are in conflict)
>

All this is explained very well in the essay.

> S concludes,
>
> Pynchon ultimately succumbs to the master-narrative of Reagan.
>

Yes, Vond isn't defeated by the rebel youth but by his budget being cut.

As we've already found out it wasn't the 60's counter-culture that ended the
Vietnam War.

>
> Sullivan doesn't quote a bible. Neither does Sister R.

Why should they? Every reader of "Vineland" knows the biblical stuff well
enough.

> I agree that Pynchon has Sister R tell Her story to form a binary with a
> misogynistic reading of the biblical story. Sister R is blaming males
> for the sins of the world.

In this she only reverses the poles of the binary opposition, this is no
deconstruction yet, only the first step, but deconstruction is a
two-step-manoeuvre.

> Of course we all know that Males have often
> blamed Females for the same.
>

Often? Our Christian system of norms and values is based upon this.

> The irony, of course (and it's the same theme over and over and over
> again here) is that in the biblical story(s)  Sister R counters, God
> confronts our Grand Parents after they sin and they point fingers and
> name names, turning on each other.
>
> The first words out of Adam's mouth are not, "I ate the fruit, forgive
> me."  No, his words are "THE WOMEN" and "THOU" and  Eve's answer  is no
> better, "THE SERPENT."
>

Yes, I've read this again and again since I was seven years old.

> God (one God--Monotheism) is the only Law and his punishes them and us
> all. This is how the Ancient Jews explained evil in their midst.

Not only that, it explains why we're mortal, why the males have to plough
the earth, sweating in the sun, and why women have to suffer pain when
giving birth to a child - and, last not least, why women are inferior to
men:

16 "To the woman he said,

"I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing;
with pain you will give birth to children.
Your desire will be for your husband,
and he will rule over you."

17 To Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree
about which I commanded you, 'You must not eat of it,'

"Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat of it
all the days of your life.

18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field."
(Genesis 3, 16-18)

>We must
> remember that the Ancient Jews believed that the world they lived in was
> Good (so we need to look at Sister's second "anecdote" too. Adam was
> responsible for their suffering. Even when they were good, made
> sacrifices only to their ONE God, they suffered. And they put the blame
> on one man named Adam. Eve doesn't get all that shit piled on her (on
> and off) till much later on.

All three great monotheistic religions are based upon this. And you're wrong
as the above biblical quote shows; Eve is cursed first.

> And Pynchon hammers at this again and again, from V. to M&D. Ultimately,
> VL is another novel about Working the Good EARTH.
>

Yes, of course, because it's the fundamental myth defining our culture and
Pynchon as a postmodern writer is trying to deconstruct this in his fiction.

>
>
> When Prairie arrives at the Sisters she argues that she is willing to
> WORK  and take  responsibility for herself. She doesn't sign a contract.
> The adults there all sign contracts and Sister reminds DL when she
> arrives with Prairie (109--Hunchback allusion) that Section B of Clause
> 8 of the Ninjette Oath (a typical Pynchonian sacred/profane conflation
> here an Oath&Contract) says,
>
> 'To Allow residence to no one who cannot take responsibility for both
> her input and her output.'

sacred/profane, input/output - the typical binary oppositions. Like high/low
culture:

Sullivan:
"Prairie's first interaction with her newly found half-brother involves the
two of them watching "the Eight O'Clock Movie, Pee-wee Herman in The Robert
Musil Story" (370). Thus, Pynchon does not distinguish between high culture
and low culture; rather, the two become indeterminately mixed on the Tube.
(...)
Pynchon concludes the novel by trading one master-narrative for another:
Reaganomics for Brock Vond. This trade-off represents Pynchon's own
surrender and his belief that master-narratives are inescapable. This is
entirely appropriate; Vineland, and Pynchon's work in general, have been
labeled as postmodern (Cowart 67): he has, despite his efforts to
deconstruct generalizing belief systems, fallen victim to the
master-narrative of "postmodernism."

What Sullivan doesn't seem to get is that master-narratives really are
inescapable because of the strictly binary structure of the linguistic
system which inevitably includes a hierarchy. There's always the pole that
claims to be the higher, more important side of the equation that explains
his superiority by referring to an outer-system entity (God, Truth,
History).

Pynchon hasn't "fallen victim to" the myth of postmodernism but is clearly
aware that because he has to use language to get his narration done, that
the twofold system is inescapable. He doesn't claim to tell the truth, he's
a storyteller, thus a liar by profession. But we love that, have always
loved it since we've heard "Hänsel & Gretel" for the first time, yet knowing
from the beginning that it's just a fairytale.

Otto