IVIV (12): Yakkin' Broads

[Mark Kohut]

Broad---groan---intelligent criticism of IV that hits home (to me) in judging this book's lasting value or place (in TRP's oeuvre or in lit history).....

I just want to add, Is this one reason why so many almost-all-male reviewers liked this book so much? 

My only attempt at a discussion beyond what Laura's layers reveal is to ask: could TRP be (partly) portraying that guy he (partly) apologized for being in Slow Learner?  

--- On Sun, 11/1/09, kelber at mindspring.com <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:

> From: kelber at mindspring.com <kelber at mindspring.com>
> Subject: IVIV (12): Yakkin' Broads
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Date: Sunday, November 1, 2009, 11:50 AM
> p. 197 – "'These broads are all
> itchin to talk, because nobody in their home life wants to
> hear anything they have to say.  Sit still for two
> seconds, and they’ll be yakkin your ear off.'"
> 
> Layer one:  an accurate portrayal of the lives of
> housewives at the dawn of the resurgence of activist
> feminism.
> 
> Layer two:  an accurate portrayal of a misogynist
> viewpoint of the day.  Here's the problem,
> though.  There's nothing historical about the
> comment.  Bill Maher, whose viewpoints are often worth
> listening to, has a standard misogynist riff running through
> his routines -- being driven crazy by yakking females is a
> big part of this.  He's mostly a progressive, and it
> only gets worse as you move rightward.  The image of
> women in films, TV and the news is as bad or even worse than
> it's ever been.
> 
> Layer three:  Pynchon's depiction of women in
> IV.  Oedipa Maas in COL49, back there in 1965
> California, is a housewife, a Young Republican, but she's
> logical and intelligent  -- the essence of
> rationality.  Pynchon wrote that book prior to the time
> he depicts in IV.  Assuming IV to be a mix of the life
> and attitudes of LA-1970 Pynchon and the current NYC-2009
> Pynchon-the-Elder/Family Man, well, where's Oedipa or anyone
> like her?  Sure, the male characters are all buffoonish
> – but we never forget who's in the White House, the CIA,
> the Police Force, the Golden Fang.  Amidst the
> housewives, the stewardii and bimbettes only two women
> modestly stand out: Sortilege, the flaky New Ager, who
> stands out by virtue of having a steady boyfriend so that
> she's not actively fucking everyone in sight; and Penny,
> who's an ADA (sexually taken with Doc and certainly willing
> to, at least metaphorically, put out for the FBI).  The
> reality is that a woman with Penny's job back in early 1970,
> wo!
>  uld have been relentlessly discriminated against and
> harassed, relegated to chicken-shit assignments, etc. 
> Pynchon gives a very inaccurate, anachronistic portrayal of
> her situation.  
> 
> The endless parade of mini-skirted bimbos starts to get
> really boring after a while.  There's really zero even
> knee-jerk social commentary to be gleaned from it about
> "(sob) the oppression of women."  For those of you
> who've seen the TV show Madmen, about the advertising
> business in the early '60s, the show does a helluva better
> job of showing us the roots of the rebirth of feminism in
> the 70s.  Assuming then, that social commentary is off
> the table, why is TRP depicting women this way in IV? 
> To paraphrase (don't have the book handy) his description of
> a racy pinball machine in GR:  "A little offensive to
> the ladies, but all in good fun."
> 
> Laura
> 
> 
>