Why Sista be messin wit the Devil

[jbor]

I have to say that I agree with pretty much everything that Otto writes
below. Could someone please repost the link to the Sullivan essay, if there
was one. I must have missed it.

best

on 31/10/03 5:23 PM, Otto wrote:

>> 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."
> 
>> 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.
>