Lit-Crit: Feminism in early novels

[Fiona Shnapple]

And, though P's use of names is never simple, the male search and
inscription for the White Goddess, the act of naming, Adam's
privileged task, is satirized in V., in the Jewish, and Biblical
names. Esther, Fina (Joseph), Sarah, Paola (Paul). All are raped or
subjected to male rape fantasy and brutality. The men in V. are turned
into swine in their chase, pursuit, of the female, when after Paola,
for example. Joseph, the Earthly father of Jesus is raped by the boys
at Play, Playboys...so on

In Benny, again, we have a Jewish, half Jewish half Catholic
character. The Jewish half is profane, and this idea, ties into, all
these years later to P's secular Maxine on the Yupper West Side.



On Fri, Oct 11, 2013 at 5:28 AM, Fiona Shnapple <fionashnapple at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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
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