V...down the drain

[RICHARD ROMEO]

Was just struck by the passage in V. on p.133 (Bantam pb).  Profane is 
musing

on the fate of the alligators in the sewer:



 "...in some prehistoric circuit of the alligator brain they knew, that 
as

babies they'd been only another consumer-object...And the soul's passage 
down

the toilet and into the underworld was only a temporary peace-in-tension,

borrowed time till they would have to return to being falsely animated 
kids'

toys.  Of course they wouldn't like it. Would they want to go back to 
what

they'd been; and the  most perfect shape of that was dead-what else?-..." 




I never connected the alligators passage down the toilet with another 
souls

passage down the toilet. Tyrone's later more eventful trip down the same

orifice. Neat bit of foreshadowing, wot?





Ron Churgin

-----------------------------

This "alligator" is actually Stencil is it  not?  He donned the outfit 
tracking the saintly rat, Veronica and almost got blown away by Profane.  
Some strange parallel in his quest which he fears is a quest for death?  

Stencil in some ways seems to foreshadow Slothrop, only with Slothrop, 
Pynchon  has him in a sense seek beyond where Stencil Jr. was left.  
Stencil is also like Oedipa and maybe one of the reasons why Pynchon 
crticized his own effort in Lot 49 was just that he had repeated some of 
the same themes he used in V.  Only with GR was he able to expand upon 
many of the nuansences he first brought to bear in V.  

And there are many foreshadowings in V.  that I've noticed also.  Maybe 
some of these NYC denizens will show up in the next book.  The whole sick 
crew in 1992 or 2002?



Richard Romeo

Coordinator of Cooperating Collections

The Foundation Center-NYC

212-807-2417

rromeo at fdncenter.org