inanimateness

She apparently wants to transform the protean motion of her life into stasis: finished narrative; genderless inanimateness; human architecture.

379), for the lady V., whose awareness of 'her own progression toward inanimateness' (p.

What thematically justifies his elevated status in the novel is not so much what has happened to him as what has begun to happen to so many others around him, and which can be most clearly seen by comparison to him: as a result of V.'s most recent emanation as a motive force, more and more characters have come in one way or another to resemble him in his inanimateness. And to this extent, at least, Pynchon may be said to have successfully dramatized his themes through characterization.

In her fashion photography, Van Lamsweerde directs her models back and forth between Cosmo-cover and Helmut Newton pastiches and the neutered inanimateness of low-glamour clothing catalogues.