Transgressive sexual depictions in literature

[kelber at mindspring.com]

Both the gay Cyprian and the sexually-assertive Yashmeen have something of a "P.C." atonement-ish quality, rendering the ATD sex scenes almost stodgy, in some counter-intuitive way.  The baroque, over-the-top sex scenes in GR are the most literary, the most fun, and, probably, his best.

Laura

-----Original Message-----
>From: Robin Landseadel <robinlandseadel at comcast.net>
>Sent: Sep 8, 2010 6:09 PM
>To: pynchon-l at waste.org
>Subject: Re: Transgressive sexual depictions in literature
>
>On Sep 8, 2010, at 2:50 PM, kelber at mindspring.com wrote:
>
>> I don't know - the baby piranha-filled glass dildo might have been a  
>> deliberate attempt to evoke goshes.  The sex scenes in GR are all  
>> kind of campily decadent and therefore entertaining.
>
>I think that's a fine example of good writing v. bad writing. There's  
>something decidedly Baroque and richly staged in the various couplings  
>in Gravity's Rainbow, it's probably the author's most vivid and  
>inspired writing as regards sex.
>
>> I'd say the Esther and Dr. Schoenmaker sex scene is the closest  
>> analog in V..  The Fina and Lucille scenes come across as a  
>> fratboy's play for worldliness, rather than anything as stylized as  
>> the GR orgy scene, etc.
>
>Later we have a depiction of a saintly, selfless and decidedly "Queer"  
>character in "Against the Day." I take Cyprian as an attempt for the  
>author to karmically atone for various uninformed depictions of the  
>Third [Fourth? Fifth? Sixth? . . .] sex, particularly in his pre-Slow  
>Learner novels.
>