AtD/VL: The Traverse Clan

[Michael Bailey]

>
> and it certainly could be equally true in texts written by homosexual
> men (or "men who commit homosexual acts" as Gore Vidal insists) - but
> after a slightly different fashion, perhaps
>


but, vive le difference, eh?


to work on a different example (Vineland):

it would be possible to view Frenesi's defection from political
correctness at the hands (or, heh heh, another part entirely) of Brock
Vond as being a lamentable example of specifying a "difference".

There's a very real "thing" (to use a technical term) being dealt
with, if that's the case.  Guys lament that when they're nice, women
perceive them as being weak.
And most of us have seen women go for really nasty guys.

the question is, does it happen often enough to constitute a "big
thing" (technical term) - or, in terms of V. - where is that
phenomenon in a "normal distribution"?

Personally I think, in their hurt feelings, nice guys who have been
rejected in favor of prick-bastards tend to over-generalize and
theorize a PBLCD - a prick-bastard lowest common denominator to which
they can, excused, themselves tend to thereafter in their own
behavior...

the presence or absence of vigor and diligence - how does THAT factor
relate to the level of fascism (Adorno's "authoritarian personality")?

Fortunately for me, Vineland doesn't try to statistically deal with
that issue (or I wouldn't probably have made it thru to the finale) -
it delineates a particular story in which that "women's susceptibility
to fascism in men" idea could be abstracted or differentiated at any
given plot point, but in the story qua story it broadens out into more
interesting related issues: the confusion of vigor with fascism, what
is legitimate authority, the clarity in retrospect of seeing a
political movement descend into folly (simultaneously with abandoning
non-violence, I will aver vigorously whenever I have a chance), so
forth...






-- 
"Why must I be like that? Why must I chase the cat?" - George Clinton,
Atomic Dog