[kelber at mindspring.com]

Family may be related to the feminine, but equating that with feminism seems a stretch.  I don't believe TRP is sexist, but is absence of sexism all it takes to be feminist?  I'd say of all his characters, Oedipa is the most feminist.  She's a seeker whose life isn't defined/determined by the fact that she's female.  Sure, the story's set in motion by the death of a former boyfriend, but she goes out to investigate, walking out on her husband without a thought, questioning men, more than beguiling them.  

Prairie is also a seeker, but she's still young and dependent and is subject to that fatal attraction to fascist men that brought her mother down and somewhat tainted her grandmother (not to mention her great-grand-aunt Lake).  At the end, we're not sure what Prairie will become, other than an adult.  DL is tough, yes, but she's cartoonish, the Floozie with an Uzi, a bit of a sex fantasy for men.  I never felt that Yashmeen (aside from having a baby) was female.  She seems like a male character with a female name tacked on.  She relates to other women purely as sex objects.  Dally is more successful as a female character, but her series of roles: faux-abductee in Chinatown, then sometimes model, later spy-mistress, are all based on using her sexuality for money.  All of these are strong female characters, but that doesn't make them feminist.  For me, that word implies either a transcendence of being an object for men (which, even with an occasional sexual dalliance, Oedipa achieves -- men don't drool over her or relate to her as strictly fuckable); or it means a woman who assesses each situation in terms of what it means specifically for women (none of TRP's female characters do this).

Laura

-----Original Message-----
>From: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>

>
>
>I agree on Family from Vineland on.
>
>My sorta argument
>
> V. is a woman who has had her humanity turn bit by bit into inanimate objects.
>
>Oedipa is, as Bekah says, ahead of her time, timed pretty perfectly by TRP and the woman as
>receiver of signs, messages maybe, awaiting some kind of revelation. Not a male, not 'aggressive',
>not charismatic nor powerful, but one pursuing the source of a man's powerful holdings. 
>
>Gentle Slothrop and snatches of Love and connection animate GR. Connection, love, the Counterforce
>to the evil empire that the Powerful (charismatic) Men have built and are now destroying with that same
>conquering spirit. To conquer rocketry is to conquer the World, They believe. The female values are NOT
>that.
>
>Then what we have observed of Vineland and AtD fit........................M & D's families and females. And 
>connected protagonists.
>
>female values = nurturance, connection, absence of power-seeking, life acceptance, lack of charismatic
>acting out, giving birth, joy in the quotidian, preteriteness. 
>
>Even P's loveable males are so by embracing the above values. 
>
>Pynchon has been a kind of feminist his whole oeuvre, his whole life, I suggest. 
>
>
>
>----- Original Message ----
>From: rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com>
>To: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
>Cc: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>Sent: Monday, April 20, 2009 11:04:38 AM
>Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
>
>I would say family, Mark though I don't necessarily disagree with yr statement
>
>the Zombinis, the chums and their mates, cyprian discovery of his,
>even the wacked traverses through their travails
>
>Vineland and M&D are as well, but it's really flushed out in AtD
>
>rich
>
>On 4/20/09, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>> I would say the values manifested in AtD are...feminist, female,
>> 'feminine'...
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----
>> From: rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com>
>> To: Bekah <Bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net>
>> Cc: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>; pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>> Sent: Sunday, April 19, 2009 9:53:30 PM
>> Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
>>
>> i think that's one thing that AtD is missing--someone as conflicted
>> and compromised as Katje or Frenesi--Lake is the closest but falls
>> short in comparison
>>
>> I don't perceive AtD as overtly feminist as Vineland--does a work that
>> includes as developed female characters as male ones constitute a
>> feminist work? i'm not sure about that
>>
>> Vineland's stories are mostly driven by women; not in AtD--its the
>> chums and the traverse brothers
>> rich
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Apr 19, 2009 at 3:38 PM, Bekah <Bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>>> I think there's a good steady progression of feminist influence from the
>>> short stories of Slow Learner and V., where it's pretty slim,  to Against
>>> the Day where Lake, Dolly,  Yashmeen and a bunch of other women have the
>>> about same amount of variation and development as the males.    Imo,
>>> Oedipa
>>> was a bit ahead of her time and  I'm so looking forward to Inherent Vice.
>>>
>>> Bekah
>>>
>>> On Apr 19, 2009, at 11:39 AM, Mark Kohut wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Robin seconds Richard Ryan:
>>>> If any of Pynchon's books show Feminist influences, than this is the
>>>> one---
>>>>
>>>> (where it splits wide open and lies all
>>>> opened in Against the Day....)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ----- Original Message ----
>>>> From: Robin Landseadel <robinlandseadel at comcast.net>
>>>> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
>>>> Sent: Saturday, April 18, 2009 10:29:49 AM
>>>> Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re:
>>>>
>>>> On Apr 18, 2009, at 4:25 AM, Richard Ryan wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Don't remember who on the list suggested that Prairie was the "true"
>>>>> protagonist of VL. . .
>>>>
>>>> Yours truly.
>>>>
>>>> If any of Pynchon's books show Feminist influences, than this is the one.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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