My Fair Ladies

[David Morris]

This is the female version of a golum. Golums always exact a counter-force
(karma) because they are forced, unnatural, in Pynchon's universe. They are
Technology: human meddling in  some concept of a natural order. In V. this
desire for control is embodied embodied (a stand-in for Everything)
in Fetishism, which is just a degree or so shy of Necro-desire. The
desperate need for Control embodied by Technology is a super-mortal Sin
infecting raw humanity, in Pynchon's universe. Humans trying to usurp God
(Lucicer's Sin). Pynchon is a very religious/mystic writer.

And it is also clear that all of the above nature of humanity's sin are
massively amplified by Capitalism.

David Morris


On Wednesday, May 6, 2015, Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com> wrote:

> My Fair Ladies
> Female Robots, Androids, and Other Artificial Eves
> Julie Wosk (Author)
> 240 pages, 60 black and white and 12 color photographs
>
> [...]
>
> The fantasy of a male creator constructing his perfect woman dates
> back to the Greek myth of Pygmalion and Galatea. Yet as technology has
> advanced over the past century, the figure of the lifelike manmade
> woman has become nearly ubiquitous, popping up in everything from
> Bride of Frankenstein to Weird Science to The Stepford Wives. Now
> Julie Wosk takes us on a fascinating tour through this bevy of
> artificial women, revealing the array of cultural fantasies and fears
> they embody.
>
> My Fair Ladies considers how female automatons have been represented
> as objects of desire in fiction and how “living dolls” have been
> manufactured as real-world fetish objects. But it also examines the
> many works in which the “perfect” woman turns out to be artificial—a
> robot or doll—and thus becomes a source of uncanny horror. Finally,
> Wosk introduces us to a variety of female artists, writers, and
> filmmakers—from Cindy Sherman to Shelley Jackson to Zoe Kazan—who have
> cleverly crafted their own images of simulated women.
>
> Anything but dry, My Fair Ladies draws upon Wosk’s own experiences as
> a young female Playboy copywriter and as a child of the “feminine
> mystique” era to show how images of the artificial woman have loomed
> large over real women’s lives. Lavishly illustrated with film stills,
> artwork, and vintage advertisements, this book offers a fresh look at
> familiar myths about gender, technology, and artistic creation.
>
> [...]
>
> http://rutgerspress.rutgers.edu/product/My-Fair-Ladies,5458.aspx
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>
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