V. Reading

[Andrew Dinn]

LARSSON at VAX1.Mankato.MSUS.EDU writes:

> p. 1: "East Main was on him."
>   The opening of V. sets up the beginning of the early Pynchon
> dichotomy-- the hothouse and the street, one a figure of
> self-enclosed narcissitic containment that ultimately leads to
> stasis and entropy and the other a figure of anarchic openness that
> also eventually dissipates to entropy.

> Profane is the host of the latter, Stencil of the former, the two echoing
> the roles of Meatball Mulligan and Callisto, respectively, in 
> "Entropy."

What you mean a bit like someone who is intellectual and obtu^H^Hese
as opposed to someone who is physically active but stupid?

Or maybe more like someone who spends all their time reading and
thinking and learning about the world around them but never acts on
what they have discovered thereby rendering their observation
redundant versus someone who is so involved in whatever they happen to
be doing that they never notice the way circumstances come to drive
them and those around them?

Think I've encountered this dilemma before. Apparently you just head
straight for the middle (although some people advise that you are
better to steer closer to the rocks - the conventional expression
being `O rocks!' - but, of course, I couldn't personally vouch for
this).

And notice the suitability of McClintic Sphere's advice `Keep cool but
care' to both Stencil's and Profane's diseases. Stencil needs some
cool to stop the random Brownian motions induced in his mind by his
paranoia. Profane needs some cool as a damper on the reinforcing yoyo
flicks of fate which would otherwise serve to increase the amplitude
of his simple harmonic motion. In both cases what they need most of
all to do is care about what is going on around them - not ignore or
fight against the forces whic perturb them but watch them, sidestep
them, route round them carefully, purposefully and attentively in
order to achieve something.

Next?


Andrew Dinn
-----------
And though Earthliness forget you,
To the stilled Earth say:  I flow.
To the rushing water speak:  I am.