Why chicks don't dig TRP

[Meg Larson]

"Take names.  Some guys want to be a Richard, I just want to be a
Dick"---Dick Dietrick
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bekah" <bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net>
To: "'Pynchon-L'" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2004 12:44 AM
Subject: Re: Why chicks don't dig TRP


> I'm quite female and I read Gravity's Rainbow from beginning to end.
Truthfully, I didn't much care for it. (I didn't "hate" it.) It was rough
and crude in a lot of places and as science and tech oriented as you can
probably get without being a sci fi or genre war book. It had a distinctly
male point of view.

Not to be difficult, here, but the roughness and crudeness and the science
and tech are what I like about it.  What I really like about the novel, or
one of the many things, are the quiet moments in the midst of loud messy
scenes, the playfulness in the midst of great seriousness.  In my
experience, GR takes patience and concentration and multiple reading--it
requires the reader to think.  When I read GR in Gary Thompson's lit class
in college (he's a former PynHead, btw), I was the only student out of 30 or
so who finished it.  The consensus among the women seemed to be that it was
not the type of novel they were programmed to read, not a "chick" novel.

But then I've been called a man's woman, so maybe that's why I like Pynch.

> I totally love Mason & Dixon and Vineland is quite fun. I'm willing to
look at Gravity's Rainbow again but... well ... it's just kind of yukky,
imo.  Boy stuff.

Exactly--boy stuff vs. girl stuff

Back to the BatCave,
Meg

>
>
>
> At 2:02 PM -0700 9/22/04, Dave Monroe wrote:
> >You know, I never saw all too many women at Gen Con,
> >either, unless they were vendors or apparently paid to
> >be there (and I have the Polaroids to prove it) ...
> >
> >I know at least one female Pynchon, er, appreciator.
> >But the only person I've ever met who both read in its
> >entirety AND hated Gravity's Rainbow was female ...
> >
> >--- Will Layman <WillLayman at comcast.net> wrote:
> >
> >> 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....
>