V-2nd - Chapter 14

[kelber at mindspring.com]

Both romantic love and fame fizzle quickly.  Death stops the fizzle.

Laura


-----Original Message-----
>From: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
>Sent: Feb 2, 2011 8:51 PM
>To: kelber at mindspring.com, pynchon-l at waste.org
>Subject: Re: V-2nd - Chapter 14
>
>"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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