Austra and the sisters Vroom

[David Morris]

I see Austra's attitude as much, much darker.  In a sense I think she is
like the Herero in GR who have decided on collective suicide.  "Fun"
doesn't, IMHO, have any place, EXCEPT that she is in a way turning the
tables on her dominators by embracing their domination.  By that turn she
removes coercion from the equation.

David Morris

On Fri, Feb 6, 2015 at 9:27 AM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:

> I agree it is ghastly what she is forced into. Both slavery and absolute
> obedience are cancerous. But I am trying to see things from the POV of
> Austra who seems to have chosen to enjoy as much of her life as she can and
> has a kind of clarity and breadth of experiience that gives her a certain
> freedom of spirit. I do not envy her, but am compelled to admire her more
> than the sisters Vroom who do not seem to know that they are little more
> than choice cuts in a devil's butcher shop.
> On Feb 5, 2015, at 9:25 PM, David Morris wrote:
>
> > Austra's complete willingness, compliance, with Vroom plans to breed her
> like an animal, and to sell off her kennel's premium is ghastly.  That
> complete submission and willingness to follow orders puts her into the
> realm of monster. She is potential bomb. She has been morally engineered to
> have no morals other than submission. Such engineering always has its blind
> spot(s).  The Golem, Frankenstein, the Duck, Slothrup, their engineering
> might go awry...
> >
> > Let's hope so.
> >
> > David Morris
> >
> > BTW, I love the name Vroom.  The word is what you read in the puff of
> exhaust in a cartoon.
> >
> > On Thursday, February 5, 2015, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
> > But Mason is not able to be in Rome. He is deeply seated in his own
> unresolved inner and outer life which keeps him at a profound  distance
> from the world created by the Voc. Even the immediacy and appeal of Austra
> cannot bring him to abandon that inner pursuit.  There is something here
> also reminiscent of the biblical Sarah and Hagar her servant who she offers
> to Abraham. Johanna seems to want to bind Mason to a patriarchal role, but
> he is not much attracted to that.
> >
> > The sisters Vroom and Johanna are a study in middle class and even
> suburban domesticity and privilege. They have financial security and
> minimal work responsibilities, but a very small world within which to
> operate, and it's defined by the bland tastes and social concerns of
> Cornelius Vroom.  Their blondeness, (whiteness) and attractiveness are the
> tools they perceive realistically as key to social status. Tey serve as an
> advertisement for a life that is boring them to death.They are as colonized
> and in some ways more so than Austra who has access to the full range of
> music, food, sexual pleasure and conversation denied the sisters.  They may
> not even know how they are being used  regarding Austra since Johann seems
> to be the master manipulator there.
> >
> > On Feb 5, 2015, at 7:34 PM, Mark Kohut wrote:
> >
> > > Well-Chosen Quotes from GR and:
> > >
> > > "This is how it's done here - the heady mixture of sex, commerce and
> > > power - sanctified in a way that brothels clearly aren't, can never
> > > be. The link between master and slave is sex-slave, Austra's telling
> > > him. When in Rome ...
> > >
> > > And with this sex-slave-power-commerce trip going on in a sea-port
> > > populated by rowdy sailors, how can it not affect even the wives and
> > > daughters?"
> > >
> > > Laura
> > >
> > >
> > > This is a well-said, as usual, way I would read it too...to me most of
> > > the scenes in M & D are very like many of the scenes in GR....that
> > > irreal, idea-containing ahistorical novel.
> > > -
> > > Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
> >
> > -
> > Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>
> -
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>
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