BEg2 Chapter 3 Maxine's age, sisterhood, etc.

[Keith Davis]

Agree that Maxine seems to be Mr. P’s most developed female character, but then, as you said, how can I judge? It would be good to hear from female readers.

linktr.ee/keithdavis

> On Nov 14, 2021, at 10:27 AM, Allen Ruch <quail at shipwrecklibrary.com> wrote:
> 
> Because Maxine is compared to Rachel Weisz, who was born in 1970, I always placed Maxine in her early thirties. I figured she’d probably be a little older—two young boys, burned through a career already, etc.—but I don’t see her as being much older than that.
> 
> And regarding her friendship with Heidi—it seems pretty realistic to me! I’ve known plenty of women who’ve had long-term friendships they’ve described in terms of sisterhood. Sometimes you love them, sometimes you hate them, you do things to piss each other off, but you have an unbreakable bond, so to speak. Maxine and Heidi seem very familiar to me in that regard. They also seem very authentically New York City.
> 
> I think Maxine is one of Pynchon’s most fully-developed characters, male or female. However—I am curious. Often in literature you can tell when a male author is writing a female character, or a female author is writing a male character. Being a middle-aged man, I’m pretty good at calling out, “OK, this male character has been totally written by a female author.” Jamie in “Outlander” comes to mind! Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, more amusing, really. And for what it’s worth, I think Jennifer Egan writes male characters pretty well, especially in “Goon Squad.”
> 
> But it’s harder for me to determine if what I *think*  is a well-written female character (created by a male author) actually rings authentic. I mean—sometimes it’s obvious (Heinlein and a lot of genre fiction comes to mind, but so does Franzen.) But sometimes I just can’t tell. (I had this discussion recently with a friend over “Lonesome Dove.” She felt the female characters were pretty darn good, but still not *completely* authentic.)
> 
> So my question is—what do female readers think about Maxine? Does she “pass,” is she “close,” or is she *clearly* penned by a male?
> 
> —Quail
> 
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