This week in pointless trivia.

[Bekah]

PS.   I have no idea why Maxine chose Windust -  but maybe she was experimenting with her new freedom from marriage and picked a wrong guy on purpose so there wouldn't be any unwanted  attachments. 

Bekah


On Oct 8, 2013, at 8:03 AM, Bekah <bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net> wrote:

> Yes,  it probably plays into some male fantasy  -  I always went for the scientists and I can see a similarity in that attraction because if he is smarter than I am,   I intuitively feel he can protect or help me and the babies stay safe.  (?)  
> 
> Between the outbreak of WWII and Vietnam men in uniform were quite popular.   There were guys all over San Francisco out for a good time wearing their military uniforms because it got points.   During the Vietnam era that so totally changed that even guys going home to Kansas on leave kept their uniform out of sight.  I remember most of this - not the WWII stuff - but from pre-Korea on.   I think in reading Pynchon we have to be careful of the time frame.    
> 
> GR and V.  for instance,  take place during pro-uniform era - and Slothrop rescues Katje
> IV,  with some exceptions,  has the woman/women going for the money - (same reasons as military and science)
> AtD has Lake going for the man with the gun. 
> M&D  Does Rebekah go for the scientist? 
> Vineland -  Frenesi gets in trouble with her desire for Brock's body,  but later she knows intuitively that Brock can protect her / hide her? 
> CoL49 -  I don't believe Oedipa ever fell in love with anyone - she has Mucho at home.  
> BE -  the only thing I can think is that there is some sub-conscious, intuitive thing in her (as "everywoman") which responds to power whether it be brute or smarts or money  - in this case I think it's the "brute" part. 
> 
> Could Frenesi and Maxine be little female fascists at heart?   I can see it in Maxine - possibly - she was an investigator type.  And perhaps Frenesi was simply and  primarily a sexual being.  
> 
> Bekah
> just blabbing - 
> 
> On Oct 8, 2013, at 6:23 AM, Laura Kelber <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:
> 
>> I've never understood the attraction either, Bekah, and I'm guessing that whatever the intellectual underpinnings,  this trope appeals to some sort of male fantasy- I don't know -  "if I were a fascist, I could get any chick I wanted, through coercion and/or attraction."? And the fantasy demands the pretense that it's really a female fantasy. Like the one where there's supposedly all these hot lesbian couples who are dying for a 3-way with a man. Never encountered any lesbians in real life who had that fantasy either. 
>> 
>> Laura
>> 
>> On Oct 8, 2013, at 8:42 AM, Bekah<bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>> 
>>> Or, perhaps,  the love-hate relationship between the sexes.  Or perhaps some really basic instinct in women to go for the man they sense will best protect them physically -   strong with a gun, militaristic, safe - "law and order" type protection.  
>>> 
>>> Bekah
>>> never did understand the attraction but who knows - 
>>> 
>>> On Oct 8, 2013, at 3:45 AM, Kai Frederik Lorentzen <lorentzen at hotmail.de> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> As mentioned before, I think that this has to do with the catholic element in Pynchon. The lefty woman fucking the fascist is Pynchon's standard illustration of original sin (aka inherent vice). The sexism in this is - think Genesis 3 - a very traditional one. Could also imagine that Sylvia Plath' famous line "Every woman adores a Fascist" (from "Daddy") is another influence here.
>>>> 
>>>> On 06.10.2013 22:33, kelber at mindspring.com wrote:
>>>>> I’m also getting pretty pissed off with Pynchon (who, otherwise, I consider one of the greatest authors of all time) for this Frenesi/Lake/Maxine/Tallis (and if the latter isn’t specifically fingered as Jewish, then why did he give her a Jewish name?) lefty-woman-who-fucks-fascists trope. Where does this come from? Where are the examples, and why does he keep portraying the daughters of the left this way? And why all the shopping and pole-dancing crap. Is this supposed to convince us that Pynchon understands women? It’s insulting and sexist. Enough already!
>>>> 
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