V. and Lot 49

[James W. Horton]

	I am so glad to hear that there are people who prefer V. to 
Lot49.  I think you are right about the semiotic thing, Lot49 lends 
itself the most obviously to this kind of interpretation.  There is 
another related element too, I think.  That is, the emotional depth of V. 
tends to be much greater: lots of youthful as well as aged melancholy, 
Conradian angst about the modern world, nameless terrors about machinery 
and nihilism that can't really be completely explained by "aporia" or the 
unreliability of the sign (though even Lot49 has more to it than that) etc.  
Sometimes I think those who favour Lot49 imagine that the emotional 
depth of V. requires immature responses that one is supposed to grow out 
of. I disagree with these people.  

	There is one good (but not necessarily sufficient) reason that 
Lot49 is taught far more often than V.:  it's much shorter.  You need 
very dedicated students to read it unless you have the good luck to have 
a group that twigs on to it right away.  That being said, though, I wonder 
whether I shouldn't have assigned it this year (oh well, too late) in 
stead of Lot49.

	I think there is another reason why V. gets too little attention: 
maybe I'm just imagining this, but I think it's the "not bad for a first 
novel" phenomenon.  Some people are convinced that your first book, 
especially if you are very young when you write it, can't possibly be 
brilliant.  This idea caters to those who have slogged away for years at 
their work and through no fault of their own just haven't managed to 
write anything very good.  However, the evidence is in the text.

J.W. Horton