Feminism & Work IV and in VL (Mildren Pierce Revisited)

[Joseph Tracy]

I am starting to see the importance of work in IV as a device for  
examining the relationships that shape both personal  identity and  
the larger power dynamics of  capitalism and political-cultural  
warfare in 70s America. I often don't agree with the specific  
interpretations you are coming up with , but am beginning to  
understand and respect your POV and often  enjoy your  rich literary  
references.

As far as feminism, I  see Pynchon looking at feminism both  
critically and sympathetically. Both in ATD and IV he casts a harsh  
light on the multiple pathways by which women are objectified and  
colonized by male centered myths( Penny at work by machismo boy's  
club, Doc's women  via his entanglement with porn, Mickey's ties,  
Bigfoot's idealized family vs. his sordid real life, Fenways sick  
ownership of Japonica  .  He also shows how women use that male  
mythos to their own advantage and actively subvert it ( Sloane,  
Penny, Shasta, Yashmeen, Dally ).  He also shows how women and men  
and  fish become complicit in their own abuse. ( Lake, Shasta, Doc,  
Coy, Charlie the Tuna)


On Feb 27, 2010, at 9:19 AM, alice wellintown wrote:

> In VL Pynchon doubles up Mildred Pierce’s relationship with her
> daughter Veda and twists it from the soft boiled
> detective novel about work and the suburbanization of California into
> a Hollywood film (about work) and onto the tube and into a novel.
>
> Mildred Pierce has been studied by feminist. What they have to say
> about it can help us construct a bridge from IV to VL, and maybe even
> to CL49. Well, not promising anything, but a bridge. And you boyz are
> all too smart to buy a bridge from this confidence woman.
>
> Janey Place, studied Mildred and sez that Film Noir “is one of the few
> periods in film when women are active, not static symbols, are
> intelligent and powerful, if destructively so, and derive power, not
> weakness from their sexuality.
>
> Pam Cook studied Mildred and sez, that the film can be read
> mythologically (Bachofen) as the overthrow of the mother-right in
> favor of the father-right.
>
> Now, there is nothing new added here, just some old stuff we read
> about in Adams, McLuhan, and P's first novel, V.., but the protagonist
> of his second "novel" is named Oedipa. This seems more than a cute
> name if we apply Pam Cook's approach to Mildred. That Zoyd battles
> Frenesi's mom and after hunting Frenesi down in Hawaii, in his
> frustration complains in what at first seems an awkward and contrived
> attempt by the author to drop an allusion, but is in fact only awkward
> and contrived if we fail to read the work as deliberately so (as in
> the conversations Larry's parents have with their son about film and
> TV, or with Eddy). A feminist work about work. Yes, that's what we
> have. So