Chapter 3 of V. and "Under the Rose"

[Caldera Desktop User]

Craig's hypothesis about the relation of the two works seems carefully
enough thought out. I guess so anyway. My head is spinning from all
the logic. Not my long suit. Anyway, another two cents.

I would like to believe that atleast the author's __conscious__ 
conception of the novel V. took place __somewhat later__ than the writing 
of "Under the Rose." 

P. was scratching his head hard for the makings of a full-blown work. For 
pretty obvious reasons he had to reject the usual autobiographical 
delving favored by many a first novelist. His family life wasn't 
horrible or sensational. He had not been blessed with parents who were 
monsters. He had never even been seduced by his nanny. Did he sometimes 
wonder what business he could possibly have writing at all? Yet he knew 
he could write. Oh how he could write!

We can imagine P. worried a lot about all this. He had tried to follow 
the dictum "write what you know". The results hadn't particularly pleased 
him. Too normal. A bit flat he had to admit. Adult themes, say involving 
male-female relationships, had alas eluded him. Sex and death. Eeeekkkk! 

"Under the Rose" had been an aberation. Its Baedekerian origins provided 
an exotic feel he had to admit he liked. ONE MINOR ASPECT OF THE
STORY KEPT COMING BACK TO HIM--THE GIRL VICTORIA. The character had been 
hammared into the short story mainly to get a little bit of gratuitous
sex into the procedings. (He needed a good grade in the course.) But the
act of creating out of nothing a glamourous sex object couldn't help but
captivate the young lad's imagination.

But P. did not want a writing life based on second-hand experience.
Baedekerian novel writing was ultimately hack work--he knew in his heart 
of hearts. On the other hand, his own experience was altogether too 
limited and normal to reach the readership he craved. He even decided then 
and there that he was not a very interesting guy. (And from then on as
we all know he was  most careful about inflicting his personal self upon
anybody.)

But what to do about the writer he wanted to be? Then it hit him. Wouldn't 
it be possible, in some clever way, to combine the two modes he so far had 
employed only indivdually, and thereby avoid the pitfalls of both? What 
happens when the all American boy, that he knew he was and always would 
be (navy experience and all), brushes up against--maybe quite tangentially
--the broad world of foreign intrique, exotic sex and who knows what else
one might cage from the public library?

But where was the link? The hinge or whatever you might call it? Well, of
course it turned out to be the accidental connection between a small
portion of the world he knew--the U.S. Navy--and the vast domains beyond
--hinted of in the person of Victoria. Yes, folks, V is the Navy's
own favorite letter (Did everyone know that? Anyone know why? I don't
but bet someone out there will know.) Anyway the letter V  
would henceforth be our budding author's favorite letter--the unconsciously 
created link between home and the world.

Or something like that.

This is how I like to believe the near perfect novel, or whatever Craig's
phrase was, came into being. And all the succeeding stuff as well.

				P.