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 Menachem Feuer ...Schlemiels & Pynchon

and

On Schlemiels in Thomas Pynchon’s “V” – Part II

May 8, 2017
http://www.berfrois.com/2017/05/menachem-feuer-thomas-pynchons-v/

On Thu, Aug 31, 2017 at 11:08 AM, ish mailian <ishmailian at gmail.com> wrote:
> Pynchon interest in American Labor is there from the start. We see it
> in the short stories and, of course, in his first novel, V..
>
> So much has been written, here and elsewhere, about Benny Profane, but
> this essay does a wonderful job of tying together the Work theme with
> women and the inanimate.
>
> Menachem Feuer
>
> Schlemiels, Women & (In)animate Yo-Yos in Thomas Pynchon’s “V”
>
> January 17, 2017
>
> an excerpt here------>>>>>>>>
>
> Rather, Pynchon suggests that the schlemiel’s relationship to work,
> inanimate “things,” and the feminine provides the reader with an acute
> sense of the schlemiel’s prominent space in Pynchon’s vision of
> America.  While Updike’s schlemiel seems to be outside the ken of
> salvation, Pynchon’s does not. But the salvation of Pynchon’s
> schlemiel, Benny Profane, is comical not sacred. It is, like the comic
> character, partial or better yet, double. Living a better life is his
> salvation. But what makes the schlemiel’s path to life unique is that
> it comes through a relationship to two women, which reflect his own
> identity which is half-Catholic and half-Jewish. Both women take him
> from being an inanimate yo-yo who dreads failure and wandering the
> streets, alone, to an animated schlemiel with a temp job and a
> (temporary) home.
>
> Read the rest here----------------------------------->>>>
>
> http://www.berfrois.com/2017/01/menachem-feuer-thomas-pynchon-schlemiel/
>
> On Thu, Aug 31, 2017 at 10:53 AM, ish mailian <ishmailian at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 11 Revelations From Salman Rushdie’s Memoir, ‘Joseph Anton’
>>
>>
>> 9. Pynchon Emerges Almost every major writer lent their support to
>> Rushdie during the fatwa years (with the notable exception of John le
>> Carré.) One of them, “another famous invisible man,” was Thomas
>> Pynchon, and this gave Rushdie particular excitement. The two dined
>> together during one of Rushdie’s New York trips, and Pynchon spoke at
>> length about American labor history. They never met again after that.
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l