stencil mom/circularity

[Chris Stolz]

I have to wade in here.  _V._ is *definitely* circular, since the
novel ends in 1922 before it begins in 1955.  We would also do
well to remember that in 1956 when the Americans are headingoff
to the Suez to bail out the Brits and French who have messed up
their sabre-rattling vis-a-vis Nasser, the sense is that the
colonialism which _V._ criticises has not gone away at all, and
so the book inscribes another sort of loop.

One of Pynchon's recurrent nightmare motifs has to do with this
circularity, where the fear is that the present is simply a
re-run of what has gobe before.  This links his work to other
provocative modern artworks circular in structure (Hitchcock's
_Vertigo_ and Lang's _The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari).  We also find
loop structures in "Low-Lands," where Dennis Flange is stuck with his
past self, and in _GR_, where they have resonances more mythical (mandalas)
than political.

_Lot 49_, whose last words are its title, is also a loop where
you finish reading the novel at its beginning, so to speak.
Anybody interested in the implications of this circularity should
read the excellent articles by Nicholson and Stevens ("Words You
Never Wanted to hear", _Pynchon Notes_ 16 (Spring, 1985)) and Paul
Coates ("Unfinished Business: Thomas Pynchon and the Quest for
Revolution" _New Left Review_  160 (Nov/Dec 1986)).
   

-- 
chris stolz		16 oakview pl. sw calgary ab canada t2v-3z9
cstolz at acs.ucalgary.ca	(403) 281-6794


"But you must admit that our ignorance is manifestly of a very rich 
and varied sort?" said Ulrich.


			Robert Musil, _The Man Without Qualities_