Chapter 3 of V. and "Under the Rose"

[Mr Craig Clark]

A lot of discussion of Chapter 3 of _V._ is under way, particularly in regard to the narrative strategy 
used. I said I'd post something regarding why Pynchon does this, and how it all relates to "Under the 
Rose". 

Well, Skip Wolfe has summarised superbly Pynchon's strategies in Chapter 3 of _V._, so I won't 
repeat them here. My argument for treating "Under the Rose" as something more than just an early 
draft of this chapter is based on the presence of Victoria Wren in the story. If Pynchon wrote the 
story first and later decided to recycle it as Chapter 3 of _V._, then Victoria is an unnecessary 
excrescence in the story (though obviously not in the novel). If, on the other hand, the story and 
chapter 3 of _V._ were written more or less simultaneously, then Victoria Wren is important to 
"Under the Rose" if only because of the link to the novel. On these grounds alone I would assume 
that _V._ was already being composed at the time Pynchon wrote "Under the Rose" - and that it
was quite possible that Chapter 3 of the novel already existed (at least in draft form) at the time
"Under the Rose" was written (for a creative writing course taught by Baxter Hathaway, according
to Pynchon).

Moreover the dating of Pynchon's early works suggests this strongly. In the introduction to _Slow 
Learner_, Pynchon states that "Under the Rose" was composed in 1959, before the publication of 
"Low-Lands" in _New World Writing 16_ in 1960. Since that story refers not only to Pig Bodine but 
also to "the old woman with the eye patch who is called Violetta" - IMHO a clear reference to V. 
herself - I would argue that by 1960 Pynchon was well into the writing of _V._. Of course this 
doesn't prove that Pynchon didn't have the idea for _V._ sometime after the composition of "Under 
the Rose" but before the publication of "Low-Lands", but I'd suspect that it took him longer than 3 
years to produce a novel as complex and damn-nearly-flawless in structure as _V._ is.

On these grounds I've argued (in my MA dissertation) that "Under the Rose" dates from more or 
less the same time - or maybe even slightly later than - the third chapter of _V._: a point also 
supported by Joseph Slade in the chapter he dedicates to Pynchon's short fiction in _Thomas 
Pynchon_ (New York: Warner Paperback Library, 1974) - though when he revised the chapter for 
inclusion in Edward Mendelson's _Pynchon: A collection of critical essays_ (Englewood Cliffs: 
Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1978) he declined to discuss "Under the Rose" on the grounds that it was "an 
early version of the third chapter of _V._". This would appear to represent critical consensus, but I 
think it may be incorrect.
 
If we read "Under the Rose" as a work composed more or less simultaneously with the 3rd chapter 
of _V._, it becomes yet another part of the jigsaw puzzle of _V._ left scattered around for the 
attentive reader - much like the references, in "Low-lands", to Violetta and Bodine. "Under the 
Rose" is a glimpse into "history" which has not been "Stencilised". The points of difference between 
the version of the events in "Under the Rose" and those in Chapter 3 of _V._ are thus important, 
because they allow us to see just how much Stencil actually does twist facts to suit his obsession.

The first discrepancy concerns Moldweorp. In Chapter 3 of V., he is never actually mentioned by 
name, although he may be the "travelling companion" of the German spy Lepsius mentioned by 
Goodfellow. He may also be the assassin who kills Porpentine. But either way, though he is clearly 
the major antagonist in "Under the Rose", in Stencil's version in Chapter 3 of _V._, he has been 
Stencilised right out of the picture - in favour of a focus on Victoria Wren.

A further discrepancy concerns the question of time. Both versions of events take place over a 
period from late afternoon on September 22 1898 through to late at night on September 25 1898 or 
early morning September 26 1898 (September 25 was the date Kitchener and Marchand met at 
Fashoda). The discrepancy concerns the precise night on which Goodfellow and Victoria become 
lovers. In chapter 3 of _V._, Goodfellow seduces Victoria after a trip to the Opera to see _Manon 
Lescaut_ on the night of September 24: at 03h00 the next morning - September 25, the date of the 
autumnal equinox - Porpentine finds them in bed together. In "Under the Rose" it is possible to date 
back from the Fashoda incident and work out that Porpentine finds them together in bed on the 
morning of September 24. Stencil has shifted by a full 24 hours the time of Victoria's seduction by 
(or of) Goodfellow to make it coincide with the equinox and thereby invest it with pregnant 
symbolism.

There's no Maxwell Rowley-Bugge in "Under the Rose." He appears to have been "Stencilised" into 
the narrative in Chapter 3 of _V._ to suggest that V. is Alice was Alice, the ten-year-old seductress 
of Ralph McBurgess. Stencil has invented a persona who was seduced by V. when she was a child - 
and then uses this invention to "prove" that V. has been manipulating people such as Rowley-
Bugge/McBurgess ever since she was a child. At least one other of the narrative personae employed 
by Stencil in the third chapter of V. does not appear to exist in "Under the Rose" - Girgis the 
mountebank and cat-burglar (the first but not the last cat-burglar in Pynchon, of course).

Finally, there are massive discrepancies in the climaxes of the two narratives. I'll leave it to you foax 
to read and compare these two: again, however, one notes that in "Under the Rose" Victoria is a 
mere bystander in the climactic struggle between Porpentine / Goodfellow and Moldweorp / Bongo-
Shaftsbury / Lepsius, whereas in Chapter 3 of _V._ she appears to draw Goodfellow away from 
Porpentine's side leaving Porpentine vulnerable to attack from Moldweorp (if it is he) or Bongo-
Shaftsbury (who may be the figure lurking in the shadows who kills Porpentine).

In fact, if we treat "Under the Rose" as the "unStencilised truth" of the events retold in paranoid 
form by Stencil in Chapter 3 of _V._, Victoria Wren is just an innocent tourist seduced by the 
lascivious Goodfellow, peripheral to the events of the duello played out by the Machiavellian spies 
around her. In Stencil's account, she usurps Moldweorp's status as the architect of European 
Apocalypse, to the extent that Moldweorp disappears almost completely from the text. Pynchon has 
given us, in "Under the Rose" our only glimpse into the "truth" behind Stencil's dossiers.

Craig Clark

"Living inside the system is like driving across
the countryside in a bus driven by a maniac bent
on suicide."
   - Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow"