Lit-Crit: Feminism in early novels

[Fiona Shnapple]

So, yeah, um, I mentioned Dana Medor's book recently, and DM re-posted
a stack from the archives, including excerpts, and, in light of recent
threads, I wanted to include others.

Thomas Pynchon seems to utilize findings and claims of contemporary
archaeologists, anthropologists and historians as evidence of the
conspiracy that is revealed (cleverly and even covertly?) in his novel
V. In his use of the letter V. (with the notable period) as a symbol
of this long lost woman, and in his use of male narrators throughout,
we can see how contemporary theories on Goddess-worshiping societies
may inform Pynchon's work.

Scholars are aware of Pynchon's knowledge of the work of Robert
Graves, particularly his book The White Goddess. In her book, Thomas
Pynchon, Professor Judith Chambers notes Pynchon's indebtedness to
Graves, notably in his central concerns: gynocentric cultures and
their repression, and the Goddess, with her fate at the hands of a
patriarchal culture devoted to destruction, a destruction ironically
"built" upon the manipulation of language (interesting that later this
surfaces in Vineland, Sasha noticing that "heartfelt language gets
pounded flat") (Pynchon 81). Chambers elaborates on Graves'
contribution to Pynchon, underscoring this linguistic element of
change:

Pynchon uses Graves's concept of the White Goddess--her ancient
matriarchal culture and its "poetic faculty"--to symbolize the
paradoxical, indeterminate nature of truth and the humanity that
attends it, both of which have been lost to logic, absolutes, and
dreams of control. (Chambers 46)


WORKS CITED

Chambers, Judith. Thomas Pynchon. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1992.
Eisler, Riane. The Chalice and the Blade. San Francisco: Harper
Collins Publishers, 1988.
Gimbutas, Marija. The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe.
Holton, Robert. "In the Rathouse of History with Thomas Pynchon: Rereading V."
--- Pynchon, Thomas. V. New York: Harper & Row, 1961.
Pynchon, Thomas. Vineland
Stone, Merlin. When God Was A Woman. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1976.
Streep, Peg. Sanctuaries of the Goddess. New York: Little, Brown and Co., 1994

http://www.thomaspynchon.com/v/extra/surfus.html
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l