V.V.1 Paola and the pigs

[O']

Pig Bodine, Pappy Hod, Benny Profane, Dewey Gland, Teflon,
the para, and Paola. 


The character that interests me most in these early chapters
is Paola:

 "American movies had given them stereotypes all, all but
Paola Maijstral
Paola knew scraps it seems of all tongues" 
V.HP.7 

All but her! Sounds like we should pay attention to Paola.
She's much more important that McClintic Sphere, imho. 

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14776c.htm

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09574a.htm

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11469a.htm

She was taken as bride by Pappy Hod when she was quite
young, sixteen she said, but her birth records were
destroyed along with most of the buildings on her island of
Malta. Pappy lied about her age and her nationality and
borrowed 500-700 from Mac the cook to bring her stateside. 
She was a bartender there, the Metro Bar, on Strait street.
The Gut. Valletta, Malta,  

http://www.hyperarts.com/pynchon/v/malta-map.html

She wanted out of Malta, every Mediterranean barmaid's
deftness, to marry out, to get out of hell, to go,  perhaps
to America, a land of Peace.  To go some place where "there
was enough food, warm clothes, heat all the time, buildings
all in one piece." 

As the piggish and riggish Pappy Hod is describing her to
his deck apes, to amuse them, he seems to almost  wake up to
the fact that the score, the calculated, purchased
relationship, he has been in, may not figure so easily now.
This doesn't prevent him from abusing her, cheating on her
and beating her. 

And what is Pig Bodine's interest in the girl? Wants to take
her on his Bike, replace a love object for a love object, to
the West. 

To the grave of Sailors, (comic,  parodic, fantastic, and
tragic) where the degeneration of the Virgin Mary towards
the inanimate is the spirit that presides over the
ceremonies and rituals there. The  Profane maternal  power
of the mechanical bride, the machinery that produces
Hollywood legs and WASP noses and stereotypes, is swollen
with buffoonery and the mockery of that holy night,
Christmas Eve, where a hymn celebrating the Virgin, her gift
of Peace, is disconnected like a juke box by the atheist Pig
Bodine and the parodic celebration, the ritual that is "suck
hour", where white foam flows from rubber breasts, causes
Mrs. Buffo, Beatrice(s),  a comic profanation of Dante's
Virgin light and guide to Paradise, to undertake a crying
jag, an inhuman blubbering, and the carnage sends Paola, the
girl from one of he most bombarded island in history,  down
to the floor where she presses her face against Profane's
leg and pleads for a little peace, while Pig Bodine sits in
as voyeur until the shore patrol  shows up, when he says,
"grab the broad", meaning Paola, and takes off, by chance, 
in the direction they are heading. 


At Teflon's ( Pig's friend who takes soft porno photos)
place Paolo is in shock, her needs manage to bring out the
healing and sympathetic talents of Benny, talents he doesn't
really have, but now  Dewey and Pig lust after the girl,
asking for seconds, as if they could meet her needs, and
when Profane suggests that she is trying to recover from her
abuse at the hands of men, that's why she's with Benny after
all, a fat ameba with pig's eyes, Pig Bodine rejects the
explanation. Profane sees in her eyes something we will
learn more about, her refusal to share a bed, but ask him to
be good to her. Teflon and camera send them out in the snow,
where it's not cold but Paola can't stop shivering, and
Benny seems to have used up his transient sympathetic
talent and so he doesn't comfort her. She presses against
him on the ferry, but he is alienated from the living, she
ends up dancing the dirty boogie with Pig and taking comfort
in the company of women, one of the Beatrices and on New
Years, when Benny asks her about the para's song, the para,
who had haunted the week, she says, "Je suis ne. Being
Born." 

Paola was born on Malta. 


As with all the women in this novel we should ask, What is
her relationship to V? At this point it is hard to say, but
I suspect that she is an important character and that the
dark days of V may be countered or counterbalanced not by
Sphere and stoicism but by a collection of women in the
novel (not that we should discount their unique qualities)
and that this enigmatic female force-Paola for example, may
function as Nora and a collection of women do in GR. Paola
seems to possess something very human, some human value,
being born. Each of us is born, unique, individuals,
vulnerable.  If we are to understand Sphere, we must, I
think, understand Paolo. She is introspective and critical
and she will develop the ability to analyze her own actions
and then, if only then,  take responsibility for them. 
Paola's Maltese heritage and experience during the war help
to mold her attitudes. 

Maijstral writes to Paola, that "having been abandoned so
early to a common underground, questions of want or
possession never occurred to you." 


Paola and Benny go to NYC. She asks him to call her, please,
but he says, Right, maybe.