IVIV (12): Yakkin' Broads

[kelber at mindspring.com]

Assuming Doc to be the stand-in for Pynchon as at least the viewpoint of the narrator, Pynchon doesn't give Doc the "yakkin' broads" dialogue that some (though not all)of the other male characters display.  Then, too, there's an odd (and completely unrealistic) pussy-centric, female-pleasure focus to a lot of the sexual goings on.  Do we really believe that in the back seat of the car Denis is going down on Jade, rather than vice versa?  Was that really what car-sex was all about back then (or today?).  All of this seems to be Pynchon's way of apologizing for the male-pleasure focus of the Free Love culture.

Laura

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

>
>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
>> 
>> 
>> 
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