Pynchons Problem

[Michael Bailey]

alice wellintown wrote:

> claimed that all American Literature was a tributary sprung from
> Twain's Finn. Heck, don't it make perfect sense? what Huck is about is
> running off from civilizing ladies what won't let a body be.

contextually, Huck was raised mostly by a single, alcoholic, male
parent...narrative reasons for choosing that - imho - was to maximize
his outsider status, and, yes, freedom from societal conventions
which, sure, were often emphasized by females who embraced those
conventions such as slavery

--- Biblical prophets noted and lamented women as well (or badly) as
men neglecting charity, mistreating servants, gluttonizing and
hoarding and warmongering, and not all that much has changed since
then, we have Ann Coulter and Ayn Rand embracing imperialism and
dog-eat-dog capitalism's excesses, and Jeanne Kirkpatrick starving
Iraqi kids and thinking it a good bargain

--- ie, woman qua woman is not necessarily a repository of virtue, nor
of vice, but the implications of accepting a certain unjust moral
order as the price of receiving female devotions are what is being
examined

--- I think we do Huck, and Twain, a grave wrong to put the cart
before the horse and have him objecting to women per se, rather than
the societal conventions they enforced!