Can Pynchon write (yet)?

[kelber at mindspring.com]

I don't find any misogyny in P's writing.  His female characters are no flatter than his male characters.  The hallmarks of myisogyny:  outright diatribes against women, women introduced purely as love interest ("the girl"), or obviously male characters (gun-toting , cigar-chomping chief of police) presented as female for tokenism or yuks; all of these are absent in Pynchon.

Laura

PS- re: Orson Welles comparisons, M&D might be his Third Man or Magnificent Ambersons.  Touch of Evil is way overrated: might be compared to VL or SL.  Of course this is just my (I assume) minority opinion.


>From: Paul Nightingale <isread at btopenworld.com>

>
>Another point about GR, if you want to talk about weaknesses. It is a huge
>achievement, certainly, for someone who had yet to hit 40; but in some
>respects (there goes that handy little phrase again) the achievement is
>flawed. It is a young man's novel, with elements of misogyny (P as a man of
>his times), and a brash (and I would offer conscious) attempt to write the
>ultimate novel. On every page he seems to be saying: Follow this! The
>writing is calculated (these are all very impressionistic statements--no
>scientific measurement here, folks) in a way that is absent from both VL and
>M&D.
>
>Reading GR I've always remembered something one of my film teachers said. I
>asked him if Citizen Kane was the greatest film ever made. He said it might
>be the most brilliant film ever made, but not the greatest. Being pretty
>stupid at the time I didn't understand him for at least five seconds.
>Welles, like P, set out to have the last word: Follow this! I feel the same
>way about GR, and GR is to M&D as CK is to Touch of Evil.
>
>
>