AtD / TRP / feminist type stuff

[Tore Rye Andersen]

Thanks for a great series of posts, Bekah! I guess I can understand your 
feelings w/r/t GR, but I'd definitely recommend giving it another go. 
Pynchon is indeed a product of his times, but a novel like GR certainly 
transcends those times. You write that "for a 25 year-old, literarily 
inclined male to read GR in the 70s, (just post-Vietnam) was mind-blowing 
and original." I was also about 25 years old when I first read GR, and I 
guess I could be described as a literarily inclined male, but I read GR in 
the early European 90s (and I find Playboy just plain stoopid), and I still 
found the novel "mind-blowing and original" and have read it nine times by 
now. There may be different things to annoy different readers in GR, but the 
novel and its prose are so full of riches that I'm sure you'll find much to 
enjoy in a rereading, if only you can disregard your initial annoyance. Just 
try reading the passage on pp. 128-36, for instance - The War's Evensong (it 
is the season after all) - and I think you'll find that it was written by an 
author who was so much more than an adolescent American with hormonal 
problems.

V. is also a wonderful novel, but its depiction of women is a bit 
embarassing, to tell the truth. Like AtD it is wildly uneven: The chapters 
set in 1956-57 are quite funny, but they're also written by a very young man 
who is very much a product of his times (and who doesn't really transcend 
them). The historical chapters of V., on the other hand, are written by a 
young genius, and I'm sure they'll stand the test of time. The chapter 
"Mondaugen's Story" is particularly fantastic, as has been pointed out.

>I doubt I'd be interested in any feminist readings, either,  they get
>a little strident sometimes and lose the general sense of a work to
>some infinitesimally small speculations.   (Are there any feminist
>readings of Pynchon? - serious question).

There are some awful feminist readings of Pynchon to be sure - Dana Medoro's 
analysis of "the menstrual economy" of Pynchon's work comes to mind - but 
there are also a couple of good ones. See for instance Molly Hite's 
"Feminist Theory and the Politics of Vineland" in the anthology "The 
Vineland Papers."

Best,

Tore

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