CHEERLEADING FOR LAURA. Again. With a challenge.

[Becky Lindroos]

Astra seems to be an unreliable character,  but she’s not a narrator so we pretty much have to take what the omniscient narrator says at face value - unless the omniscient narrator is unreliable (I don’t think so).  

So the question becomes is Astra telling the truth - at least as she knows it?  -  I’d say yes -  I’d add that she probably doesn’t have any particular qualms about trying to get pregnant by Mason - life might be easier for her if she’s carrying a part white child,  perhaps as long as she’s allowed to keep the child. 

But on page 90 (Chapter 9),  as Astra is walking up Table Mountain with the Vroom girls to see where Mason & Dixon work, she thinks:   “ ’Tis not with them (M&D) your debit grows but with the African women from whom you take, take without pause or apology.”   

Imo,  Astra is doing whatever will make her life easier,  but not liking it much - her heart is with her people in the Droster.  She’s on the scene again in chapters 10, 14 and 42 - the narrator treats her pretty straightforwardly - having read a bit ahead on those sections I find her to be quite sympathetic, starting from the page I quoted.  

Hope there’s not too much spoilerish material here.  

Bekah 

> On Feb 5, 2015, at 1:34 PM, Keith Davis <kbob42 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Maybe he's just giving us Ye Olde Pynchonian Jolt, pulling our collective leg, and at the same time, making us see the old slave/owner dynamic in a new and surprising way, and setting us up for more fun and games, at Mason's expense, and to his bewilderment, in the Vroom household.
> 
> 
> Www.innergroovemusic.com
> Sent from Beyond the Zero
> 
>> On Feb 5, 2015, at 3:45 PM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> Will you all RISK a judgment on Laura's particular question. PLEASE??:
>> 
>> Is Austra telling the truth? Is the Vroom household of women
>> just a reliably told tale in another historical novel?
>> -
>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l

-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l