CHEERLEADING FOR LAURA. Again. With a challenge.

[Becky Lindroos]

Who used the phrase “unreliable female” like it might be some kind of stereotype?    - I certainly didn’t - I wouldn’t.  I said "unreliable character."  That’s it - there was nothing gender based about my response except that the unreliable character we’re discussing happens to be female.  Lots of unreliable females around - probably about as many as there are unreliable males.  (Although I think there are more unreliable male narrators in fiction than female.) 

Furthermore,  fwiw,  I don’t think Austra is particularly unreliable - she’s dealing with a situation which is way beyond my experience - I don’t see what she’s saying as having internal contradictions or being naive or even particularly deceptive except to the males she’s dealing with perhaps - and to Johanna probably (?).  -  Maybe that makes her unreliable in some ways,  but I think Pynchon gives us insight into her (fictional) reality which seems pretty consistent to me -? .  

Depends on what you mean by “unreliable,”  I guess.  (A really age-old question.) 

Becky 

> On Feb 10, 2015, at 8:16 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Its funny. tonight, as I read your post that I felt shitty. Are you female? I think I must be more female than you, from your response. "Unreliable Female!" Is the ageless bugaboo.
> 
> Puhleeze.
> 
> David Morris
> 
> On Thursday, February 5, 2015, Becky Lindroos <bekker2 at icloud.com> wrote:
> 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/?listpynchon-l

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