Reading V., Benny the Yo-Yo

[LARSSON at VAX1.Mankato.MSUS.EDU]

Al suggests:
"Hmm, I see Profane as a system LOSING energy, rather than spiraling out
of control.  The yoyo rides back in forth with a pendulum's frequency,
taking Benny along for the ride, but it is slowing down, settling on a
focus point, Rachel Owlglass.  I read Profane's leaving for Malta in some
ways as a long overdue act of agency, to break himself out of this
predetermined periodic motion, to postpone his entropic "heat death"."

I think you're right here--notice how often the damping effect is evoked
in the novel--the clock in Eigenvalu's office, the curtains during the 
assassination attempt in Cairo, etc.


Al also asks:
"What is it about this settling point that's so terrible?"

I assume you're asking what is so terrible *to Stencil* (and/or Profane?)
about this point.  Here, I think, is yet another way in which TRP hands
us a concept with two sharp edges--
	1) it's terrible because stasis=inanimate=death; it ultimately defies
		life  (look at the Beats and their quest for movement,
		energy release, all summed up in the title of the Beat novel
		GO)
	2) it's terrible in an entirely different way because endless movement
		denies life--life as actually living instead of seeking,
		encountering and dealing with boredom and the inevitability
		of death; life as commitment to others, which means sticking
		around and not running off all the time.

P. knows that both attitudes are correct--and that both are traps as well.


Don Larsson, Mankato 
State U (MN)