V-2nd, ongoing profanity

[Heikki Raudaskoski]

Gayness and explicit attitude toward gay/lesbian people are one thing,
but for me, GR is much more queer than any other book by TRP. GR's
narration makes me experience my own "normative" sexual ways as quite
weird indeed. But there is also a certain directness to its narration
that makes the novel much more erotic than any other Pynchon novel.
(At least for this "straight male" reader.) The blunt V. mainly works
through negation. Which I like. It's a quite "modernist" book in fact.
All those Iserian gaps. MD, being a pastiche, retains a certain
indirectness at least when I, non-native, read it. But its stylized
generic form is also a "stencil" that holds it together. AtD, for all
its good intentions, hasn't as yet managed to work for me on any level.
Not even unwork. V. unworks for me.


Heikki

On Thu, 17 Jun 2010, rich wrote:

> I once asked the critic Brian McHale in Antwerp (this was in 1998
> during 25th anniversary of GR conference) about Pynchon's depiction of
> gay characters. He said Pynchon didn't know/get gay people. I asked
> him specifically about the somewhat homoerotic charge b/w mason and
> dixon which I thought was well done and very mature. guess we
> disagreed. I was a bit tipsy that night so I may be misremembering but
> I did manage to find Steven Weisenberger's lost spectacles (cue Jethro
> Tull)
> I would hope he saw an even maturer depiction in the guise of Cyprian
> who I think is the most soulful character in AtD. I really wish
> Pynchon could do that with a female character. he hasn't yet imho
>
> rich
>
> On Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 11:00 AM, Robin Landseadel
> <robinlandseadel at comcast.net> wrote:
> > Take chapter fourteen?Please!?"V. In Love". Short version, a bunch of fags
> > cook up Le Sacre du Printemps and finish it off with with a real human
> > sacrifice, like an even gay-er version of "Wicker Man."
> >
> >        . . . An apocryphal story relates that he vowed at that moment
> >        never to touch drugs, never to attend another Black Mass . . .
> >
> > It's a wonder anyone takes the author seriously after all the  adolescent
> > sniggering in this chapter. TRP makes a facile equation of the breakdown of
> > tonal centers and the breakdown of mores and morals in its wake as La
> > Jarretière is impaled during the ballet's musical climax. Meanwile, the boss
> > comes up with lines about  "Mongolized fairies."
> >
> > Cyprian, in many ways, serves as a corrective.
> >
> > On Jun 17, 2010, at 6:52 AM, rich wrote:
> >
> >> or maybe the Pyncho is capt bringdown. V. is a pretty humorless, inert
> >> piece of wonder. easy to love when you're young, horny, a few lit clit
> >> classes not to mention a bit of newly discovered and welcomed femdom
> >> under yr belt
> >> i'm so very glad all those cute boys grew up
> >> (keep it if not bouncing at least cumming)
> >>
> >> faery blessings mistress
> >
> >
>