Why chicks don't dig TRP

[Will Layman]

OK, I'll take a shot at this.

I've been reading TRP for about 25 year and, like many of you, I've never
(EVER) succeeded in getting a woman to enjoy his work.  My wife?  Nope.  My
students?  Don't like him, if they're girls.  Not friends, not enemies.

Caveat -- we've had some brilliant women on the P-List over the years.  This
is not an argument that women "can't" like Pynchon -- or that some don't.
It's just speculation as to why so much of his following is male

I think it has something to do with the fact that, while the substance of
his work is deeply compassionate, the methods are more akin to bullying.
His "encyclopedic," "systems novel" style conforms to what one book called
"the art of excess" in which the WHOLE POINT is for the reader to be
overwhelmed by and beat-up by the book.  The Pynchon reader is Clintonian --
he feels the writer's pain.  See also INFINITE JEST, whether you guys like
it or not.  Men, at their aggressive best (?) seem to enjoy this reading
experience more than women do.

Also, TRP's characters -- men and women -- are NOT particularly 3D.  I love
it all, but I'm NOT going to make the claim that Slothrop or Zoyd, Oedipa or
Profane is represented as an emotionally realistic human being.  Even Mason
and Dixon (the characters) delight us more as "types" and as actors on a
brilliant literary stage than as feelingly presented people.  And -- AGAIN
-- the utter stereotyping of this thinking acknowledged, women seem less
tolerant than men of long books that don't contain any emotionally authentic
characters.

Now, I'm SURE someone will argue that the first three novels all contain
varying degrees of sexism that is not particularly excusable.  I think even
TRP himself might make that argument today.  Even a hip guy like Tom wasn't
THAT hip in the 60s.

Please don't flame me for suggesting that female readers are somehow less
capable or less intelligent than male readers -- that is NOT my point.  Many
-- but not all -- brilliant female readers just don't like TRP all that
much.  (Hey, I don't like some great stuff that they like, right?)  I'm just
suggesting why that may be the case.

-- Will