âThe Real and Only Fucking is Done on Paperâ: Penetrative Readings and Pynchonâs Sexual Text

Jessica Lawson

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âThe Real and Only Fucking is Done on Paperâ: Penetrative Readings and Pynchonâs Sexual Text

äºAgainst the Grain

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Jessica Lawson

Jessica Lawson
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Page Range:: 231â249

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789042030732_014

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Gravityâs Rainbow is an exercise in interpretive paranoia. The characters develop strategies to decipher the coded worlds they navigate in the novel, presenting the reader with different methods of textual engagement with which to discover the meanings of the novel. These different approaches to interpretation cross-pollinate intellectual inquiry with modes of physical, even erotic, engagement. Putting these textual strategies in conversation with Barthesâs The Pleasure of the Text, I argue that Gravityâs Rainbow aligns literary intercourse with sexual intercourse, making writing and reading inherently sexual practices. This essay examines the link between sex and text, in which erotics work through and around inscription, language, and sign. From Pirateâs masturbatory decoding to Slothropâs curious map, sexuality is inextricably linked to the making of meaning. A series of counter-examples provide alternative models for intimacies that elide code (Roger and Jessica) or break the rules of Wittgensteinâs language games (the Casino Herman Goering), while continuing to complicate the relationship between the physical interiorities and protrusions of the human body and their fluid relationship with the interiorities and penetrations of literary objects. Moving from the precedents of sexual reading set early in the novel, I trace different and particularized approaches to the erotic, from Pointsmanâs pedophilia to Slothropâs toilet fantasies, which are complemented by equally specific practices of writing and interpretation. Finally, with this vocabulary of sexual and textual methodologies at hand, I consider the interpenetrative possibilities for a readerâs engagement with Gravityâs Rainbow: how we get inside it, how it gets inside us, and who exactly comes out on top.

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Against the Grain

Reading Pynchonâs Counternarratives

ä¸ç¼ï¼ Dialogue, å·ï¼ 8and Dialogue Online, å·ï¼ 8

ISBN:: 9789042030732

åºçç¤¾:: Brill

å°å·åºçæ¥æ:: 01 Jan 2010

Subjects
- American Studies
  - General

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African Studies	Education	Media Studies
American Studies	History	Middle East and Islamic Studies
Ancient Near East and Egypt	Human Rights and Humanitarian Law	Musicology
Art History	International Law	Philosophy
Asian Studies	International Relations	Religious Studies
Biblical Studies	Jewish Studies	Slavic and Eurasian Studies
Biology	Languages and Linguistics	Social Sciences
Book History and Cartography	Life Sciences	Theology and World Christianity
Classical Studies	Literature and Cultural Studies

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âThe Real and Only Fucking is Done on Paperâ: Penetrative Readings and Pynchonâs Sexual Text

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Against the Grain

Reading Pynchonâs Counternarratives

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âThe Real and Only Fucking is Done on Paperâ: Penetrative Readings and Pynchonâs Sexual Text

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Reading Pynchonâs Counternarratives

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