V.V. (3) "Young Stencil the world adventurer"

[jbor]

Are we so sure that it isn't Stencil himself, with his penchant for 
referring to himself in the third person, who is generating this
introduction to the reader in these somewhat idealised, if not idolised,
terms? The chapter is subdivided rather ominously, and that setpiece script
between Stency and the Margravine at 53.9 is particularly stylised and,
well, Stencillesque, in tone as well. And, as we will see later, Stencil's
"activity" in pursuit of V isn't all that it is purported to be here. I
think the WSC might be getting a bit of a hard rap, too, and particularly if
it is Stencil who has here mooted himself as a positive contrast. Isn't he,
as revealed by the potted bio. in this chapter, little more than a
(self-)glorified moocher?

best

----------
>From: Don Corathers <crawdad at one.net>
>To: "'s~Z'" <keith at pfmentum.com>, "'p-list'" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>Subject: RE: V.V.3--McClintic McClintoc
>Date: Sat, Nov 4, 2000, 5:57 PM
>

snip
> And then there's Stencil, who is after all a Major Goddamn Character making
> his debut here.
>
> We meet Stencil at Fergus's party and a page and a half after making his
> acquaintance we have received a substantial portion of the total amount of
> straightforward exposition that we're going to get on his hunt for V.
>
> We are told that after decades of lassitude, he is energized by the pursuit
> of V. to the point that "what love there was to Stencil" was directed
> toward "this acquired sense of animateness." And we are explicitly shown
> the contrast between Stencil's V-inspired activity and the Whole Sick
> Crew's lethargy. How do we read this in the context of the human/inanimate
> duality that is so important in these early chapters?