V-2nd - Chapter 14

[Mark Kohut]

"the more general (and easier to fathom) proposition:  true, romantic love can 
only be maintained through death (where it's frozen into an idealized state).  
Ditto for fame." 
Laura

we gotta comment on THAT!......true, romantic love = like fame=both maintained 
through death....

I would never have linked them...you? 

Why? one all private...the other public .....yet.....




-----Original Message-----
>From: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
>Sent: Feb 2, 2011 2:54 PM
>To: kelber at mindspring.com
>Cc: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>Subject: Re: V-2nd - Chapter 14
>
>Laura maintains (and it's funny if read in a Pynchonian skewed mindscape, I 
>say): 
>
>"I don't think BS is in any way a reworking of anything in this chapter, but the 
>
>protagonist does seem to have the passive, tortured artist, abused child with 
>lesbian tendencies in common with Melanie."
>
>And there's Love...sex....dying unknowingly ( until too late)...somewhere in 
>Grant's Companion someone finds
>sourcing in ye old fave Rilke.......
>
>I do not think anything from this chapter of V. is reworked in that movie...but 

>riff on the thematic connections someone...anyone, anyone?
>
>
> 
>
>
>----- Original Message ----
>From: "kelber at mindspring.com" <kelber at mindspring.com>
>To: pynchon-l at waste.org
>Sent: Wed, February 2, 2011 11:54:50 AM
>Subject: Re: V-2nd - Chapter 14
>
>I don't think BS is in any way a reworking of anything in this chapter, but the 

>protagonist does seem to have the passive, tortured artist, abused child with 
>lesbian tendencies in common with Melanie.
>
>Also thinking of the 1913 setting: war, as portrayed in The Rape of the Chinese 

>Virgins, is disturbing, but theoretical.  Then it becomes suddenly, gruesomely 
>real.  So Pynchon's recreating not just the mentality surrounding the premiere 
>of The Rite of Spring, but the mentality in 1913 towards the impending war:  
>Titillating to the generals, the politicians, the aristocracy or anyone with an 

>ax to grind, but unrealistically imagined.
>
>Laura
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>>From: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
>>Sent: Feb 1, 2011 5:15 PM
>>To: kelber at mindspring.com
>>Cc: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>>Subject: Re: V-2nd - Chapter 14
>>
>>LK asks:  We get caught up in Melanie's story (and, by the way, does anyone 
>>think the screenwriters of Black Swan might have read this?
>>
>>I have seen BS and din't think of this and I should have. Discuss. Discuss!
>>
>>if so, I say it is sea-changed, turned-over.....Natalie Portman dies after her 

>>sexuality is self-encountered and 
>>partly because it is...........
>>
>>But there are the mirrors..the fantasies....
>>
>>And the return of the repressed as theme....
>>
>>
>>----- Original Message ----
>>From: "kelber at mindspring.com" <kelber at mindspring.com>
>>To: pynchon-l at waste.org
>>Sent: Tue, February 1, 2011 4:14:09 PM
>>Subject: V-2nd - Chapter 14
>>
>>This is the second week we're supposed to be focussing on Chapter 14 - V. in 
>>Love.  I guess Robin bailed on us as host and Mark's been the main 
>>standard-bearer.  All this snow doesn't help.  Oh Scandinavian p-listers (you 
>>know who you are!), please advise:  how the hell do we deal with all this  Bad 

>>White Shit From the North (metaphorically evil in Pynchon's world)?  Is drinking 
>>
>>
>>oneself into a stupor an essential survival skill?
>>
>>Some thoughts on Chapter 14:
>>
>>1. Robin scathingly accused Young Pynchon of referencing The Rite of Spring 
>>without caring about it.  Is the lurid quasi/pornographic spin of Pynchon's 
>>stand-in work, Rape of the Chinese Virgins, meant as a dis to TROS?  Or is it 
>>must upping the ante to give jaded post-war audiences a taste of how 
>>controversial the original might have been.  The reports of riots at the 
>>premiere of TROS may be overblown, but there certainly were loud-mouthed 
>>arguments going on.
>>
>>http://www.classicalnotes.net/classics/rite.html
>>
>>Recreation of the original(sans catcalls), parts 1 and 2:
>>
>>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjX3oAwv_Fs
>>
>>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vb8njeKBfqw&feature=related
>>
>>2.  We get caught up in Melanie's story (and, by the way, does anyone think the 
>
>
>>screenwriters of Black Swan might have read this?) until Pynchon reminds us that 
>>
>>
>>this is just Stencil's fantasy of what might have happened, based on what an 
>>unknown woman, who may or may not have been V. told Porcepic (who, in turn, told 
>>
>>
>>Stencil).  So we're reading Stencil's pornographic fantasy.  Somewhat like that 
>
>
>>sequence in Mason and Dixon (damn, can't find my book!), where we get wrapped up 
>>
>>
>>in the story of a young woman being abducted by a Chinese white-slaver or 
>>something, only to be told we're reading from a trashy novel owned by one of the 
>>
>>
>>narrator's kids (did I get that right?).  So Pynchon can indulge in the smut and 
>>
>>
>>disclaim it simultaneously.
>>
>>3.  Robin also accused Pynchon of being homophobic in this chapter.  I have to 

>>disagree.  Stencil fantasizes V. as a lesbian, but Melanie is a pure narcissist. 
>>
>>
>>It's not enough to be watched masturbating, she must be watched via mirror.  
>>Simone De Beauvoir's got a whole chapter on The Narcissist in her book The 
>>Second Sex.  Something about how looking at herself in the mirror allows a woman 
>>
>>
>>to objectify herself as she's objectified by men, making her into both subject 

>>and object simultaneously - perhaps the only source of power for women in those 
>
>
>>days.  And we know that Pynchon sees mirrors as the flip side of what is, as an 
>
>
>>alternate morality.  V. seems to be giving melanie something that public 
>>adoration cannot.  She's making her fractured self (good/bad, daughter/lover, 
>>pampered child/incest victim) whole.  This isn't, in general, What Lesbians Do.  
>>
>>
>>If Robin's around, wish he'd tell us more about the homophobia.  Maybe I've 
>>missed something.  The spike in the vagina?  Ouch!  Misogynistic, but not 
>>homophobic.
>>
>>Laura
>>
>>
>>
>>      
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