Concepts as characters

While I appreciate the rationale you give for your own enjoyment in reading Thomas Pynchon's novels (responding to the question you pose, "Why don't women read Pynchon?") I disagree entirely with the assertion that, "Pynchon rarely creates three-dimensional" characters (whether they're "protagonists" or, maybe more accurately stated: some of the many "multiple-protagonists", that inhabit his works). I disagree even more strongly with the generally held and thoroughly conventional "wisdom" that Pynchon doesn't provide "personalities to latch onto" or that Pynchon's "characters are not psychological" and other similar, unfounded and never supported complaints. To begin with Oedipa Maas (clearly, in this instance, the sole protagonist of "The Crying of Lot 49") I cannot see on what basis (you don't provide any) you can claim that, "her voice is essentially gender neutral". I say this because on nearly every page of the novel, Oedipa is so clearly and fully a young adult woman of her time (1966); a woman aware of her affect on men and who has relationships with a wide variety of them (leering teenaged boys, an opportunistic and vain actor-turned-lawyer, her husband, a leech in a darkened San Francisco apartment, her psychiatrist, and many, many more men who obviously view her as a woman). She's also a woman grappling with that "man's world" view of women, epidemic at the time; this is even within the weave of the book's plot, for she is acting as "executor, or she supposed executrix" of her ex-husband's estate... What's fascinating and refreshing then as now (and sadly, maybe even more so now) is that Oedipa is a smart young woman: clever and funny and struggling -- yes, emotionally -- with both a world that has revealed itself to be teeming with plots and hidden histories, as well as her own ability to cope with any of it. In "Gravity's Rainbow", among all the rocketry and history, there are the deeply emotionally and psychologically true relationships of Roger Mexico and Jessica Swanlake (not to mention the complications of Jessica's "other chap", Jeremy -- also known as "Beaver"). There's the dark, complex, and also psychologically observed relationship of Katje Borgesius and Captain Geoffrey "Private" Prentice (not to mention her other chap, Lieutenant Weissmann...). There's Franz Pokler and his wife Leni and their daughter, Ilse, and all the heartbreaking tragedy of their story in this monumental masterpiece of many stories... Maybe it's the funny names that so many readers remember while failing to recall all of the minutely rendered psychological depth of the people who bear these names, and their very real and resonant relationships. I could quote lengthy passages of exquisitely tender and funny and observant prose and dialogue from the scenes that capture these relationships, but there's just so much time I've got for this... Then, of course, there's the extremely detailed observations of relationships of "Vineland": Prairie Wheeler's poignant coming-of-age search for her mother, Frenesi Margaret Gates -- their relationship with each other as well as their relationships with Zoyd Wheeler, father of the former, husband of the latter (not to mention the brilliantly observed relationships between these characters and other family members, through several generations. For what is this book "about" (in addition to, yes, because this is Thomas Pynchon, plenty of other things, of course) if not family relationships? And they're all captured with psychological verisimilitude and palpable emotion: funny and bitter and bittersweet and as true as any fully explored lives I've encountered in literature. And again, maybe it's the names that confuse readers to such a degree that they become not just sloppy readers, but suspect readers, for they call into question whether they've actually, you know, even read the books. Since everyone seems to agree that the sort of "buddy story" that is much of "Mason & Dixon", means that well, there must be also be something in there about human relationships. But for further psychological depth, I'd draw your attention especially to Charles Mason's relationship to his beloved and deceased wife, who haunts the man through the entire book, and about which relationship we learn quite a lot indeed -- all of it psychologically profound, moving and true to life, no matter what century... And now we're reading (well, I'm still reading) "Against the Day", and it's no surprise to me to find psychological depth in several of the plot lines, most fully realized -- and again as one is used to finding in Pynchon if one is actually reading the words on the page and feeling the emotions they convey -- in the family histories and dramas of the Traverse family, and all the many married men and women of it, and all the many children and their wives, and these men and women, all marvelously observed, rich with scenes of absolutely honest domestic life as anyone should easily recognize it -- for it has the reality and truth of real lives lived by real people. And again, I could quote long passages, full of the stunning impact of truth, and dialogue that sounds like it's coming from next door (or upstairs), only a lot more entertaining, but I'm starting to wonder why I'm bothering with this at all. The fact is, that in addition to all the science, math, philosophy, history, adventure, fantasy, surrealism -- all the rest of what comprises Thomas Pynchon's novels, there is in Pynchon's work an enormous amount of deep human feeling, authentic relationships and, yes, in all cases, psychological depth and veracity. I have to wonder if people are reading the books, or are they just reading reviews of the books? For Pynchon is nothing if not a passionate Humanist with a deep concern for us "poor preterite", as is everywhere evidenced in the overwhelming gifts of his art. A deeply caring author with an abiding love for just plain people, imperfect as we are, trying hard as we do, to survive the monolithic and heartless systems and forces that conspire to control and then dispose of us... I suggest you might re-read his books, and really, tell me honestly if you are not encountering and spending time with and looking deeply into (despite the goofy names) the lives of real people with histories and life-experiences and... psychological depth?

The corrections: The letch (not “leech”) John Nefastis, of “The Crying of Lot 49” to whom I referred, resides in Berkeley (not San Francisco) California. I apologize for the lack of line breaks to indicate paragraphs (ditto, for some grammatical gaffes): I wrote this, in a great rush, in one application, then copy & pasted to the website “comments” where they were duly lost… so, yes, I recognize this makes my remarks look nuttier than they may or may not be -- and worse, makes it terrible hard to read my comments at all. But, I can’t fix that now, short of re-posting the whole thing, a-and who wants that?!? Life’s too short for revisions. Please slog through, if a defense of the psychological depth of Thomas Pynchon’s treatment of his characters is of any interest to you. There are many, many instances I could’ve noted but didn’t: it was past my bedtime, and I was working without the texts to refer to. Still, I’d rather anyone just read the books for themselves and make up their own minds. It’s all there, and not even buried, right in the pages of his books… Happy trails.