Lolita on ketamine

[Joseph Tracy]

Hello Jody

I just want to apologize for my overly intense reaction to Lolita on 
ketamine. My interpretation was an honest attempt to understand, but I 
should have asked questions first, and understanding, I did, that it was 
intended as humor, to have replied in a similar lighter mode.  While I 
like Farina and Pynchon, I don't care for Nabokov at all and feel highly 
wary of his attitude toward sexuality in young women, (more from his his 
later work than from Lolita).

I have no idea of the guilt of the 7 male Cornell students accused in 
the current controversy, will let trial evidence speak to that. But rape 
culture and the accompanying diseased caricature of women is real and 
far too pervasive. Knowing its devastating effects on real people in my 
life, incidents of this kind produce intense reaction in me. We are all 
being knocked about by the large scale power of this culture of macho 
violence and I for one, don't always handle it well, or wisely direct my 
anger.

Pynchon himself has a mixed treatment of sexuality. I find the passage 
in V where the young woman is smiling after being gang raped to be 
disgusting, dishonest juvenile fantasy.  I think many of us thought we 
were in an age when the violence of war and rape was receding as a 
societal force before a more enlightened social vision.  Instead, it is 
hard to bear the kind of world and country  my children are inheriting. 
Sometimes I rant.


On 10/8/26 5:47 AM, jody2.718 via Pynchon-l wrote:
> Thank you all for responding to my contribution to the list!
>
> In an effort to understand the current events of the day, as well as,
> my own problems with Brodman's areas #44 & #45 (Broca's and Wernicke's)
>
> https://www.kenhub.com/en/library/physiology/language-areas-of-the-brain
>
> of my dominant hemisphere, and maybe each of anyone else's here
> trying to make sense of the difficult times we share, and, express it-
> here are a few pointers to decipher what I was getting at in the
> admitted salad of "Lolita on ketamine."
>
> Cornell
> Coincidence
> Vladimir Nabokov
> Richard Farina and works
> Thomas Pynchon and works
>
> As an aid to understanding I offer:
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony
>
> And, in attempt to keep civil discourse, an offering toward
> metacognition:
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection
>
> Thanks again!
>
> Keep the flame,
> jody
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l