VV(5)--Impersonations IV-VI

[jill]

Max is nowhere.

Impersonation IV takes place on a weird train ride from Alexandria to
Cairo.  It is the day of the Opera. Last night was the party at the
Austrian Consulate. Logically, we should probably look to part VI to follow
the events right after the party at the Consulate. We only just left off in
the middle of that night, and now for some reason we are jumping ahead one
frame. At least that is how I find it. The travellers include Lepsius, who
is seen as having blue lenses for eyes, which is another way of saying
having blue eyeglasses, right...?  Mildred, who is likened to a marine
creature, watery eyes, perhaps a limpet, clinging to the rock. And
Porpentine, whose face is not yet peeling, but burning like anger.  We are
presented with an array of examples about how the destruction of things and
religions by the encroaching westwardmen has been some bad shit. The slow
crush of things hothouse and ecstatic or sensual by the influx of foreign
abstract laws and imperial gain. The oddest part of this part is when Bongo
Shaftsbury, who has revealed as switch on his arm. Bongo Shaftsbury is
two-faced, he's one way or another. His role is blackmailing Victoria and
he's her lover. He's got connections to both Lepsius and perhaps also to
the side of employing Porpentine and Goodfellow. Pynchon has deliberately
given all these characters more than one description, more than one
identity, and probably more than one loyalty, or a loyalty that switches to
different directions: Porpentine, Goodfellow, Bongo-Shaftsbury, Victoria
and Maxwell.

(compare to the switch on the arm of Fergus, and the switch in the nasal
cavity of Ester)

lectures Porpentine on p. 79. It seems sort of read, or mechanical, or
robotlike.

   "Hurrah. General principles again." Corpse fingers jabbed in the air.
"But someday, Porpentine I, or another, will catch you off guard. Loving,
hating, even showing some absent minded sympathy. I'll watch you. The
moment you forget yourself enough to admit another's humanity, see him as a
person and not a symbol--then perhaps--"
   "What is humanity."
   "You ask the obvious, ha ha. Humanity is something to destroy."

I don't think they are kidnapping Mildred, why would Bongo Shaftsbury be
involved with that if he's lovers with Victoria (p.61)

Impersonation V takes place on the preceding day, following Part I, after
Goodfellow and Porpentine are split up and Porpentine goes to the Turkish
Quarter. Oddly enough, his face is observed in a higher state of peel than
before, which leads me to believe he has removed a disguise, and that this
is spirit gum, and his alternating states of red and blotchiness are not
enirely due to the sun but to recovery from disguise. It more logically
follows part I, when Goodfellow's face is simply red. Impersonation V is
also the day in which everyone is preparing for the evening at the
consulate party. It is from Gebrail's POV, and whether he descends from a
line of family that ruins its land due to agricultural malpractice or not I
don't know. I suppose he is Sudanese. The whole history of the Mahdi and
Sudanese nationalism is very deep and one could probably read loads about
it. However, I sympathise with him and it is one of Pynchon's more
sympathetic pictures at this point. There are errands run in which he taxis
Porpentine who among other things, locates a chemist. (We hear this after
Goodfellow comes out of the Hotel Khedival and rejoins Porpentine). Might
this have to do with removing spirit gum... or what? We'll get to that
though in Impersonation VII. Porpentine, during these errands, might have
learned things from a woman who appears disguised, or who really is Zenobia
the Copt. Thanks for the Kai's posting of the text of the Rilke's
aufzeichnungen des malte laurids brigge. This text reminds us of what might
be a bauble fallen from this grand opera Manon Lescaut that they are going
to watch. Thanks by the way to David Morris for his postings about Copts. I
think the Copts are painted as the good guys of early Christianity by these
writings, not the Egypt-Destroying type. But what do I know? Porpentine
visits the jeweler (who might be Lepsius? or the Arab?) and I guess at this
point leaves empty handed either because he doesn't get what he wants or
else he only exchanges information. 

Impersonation VI takes place seemingly after the consulate party, somehow
the grouping of Porpentine, Goodfellow, B-S and Victoria has dispersed so
that we have the following action possible. For if they had remained
together, as they were on the curb of Fink's, none of this would make
sense. So that's a missing section. Porpentine's face is tissuey only after
earlier at the Consulate party having been simply red faced. This is where
Girgis sees Porpentine trying to climb ?sneak? into the window in the back
of Shepheard's Hotel. Porpentine keeps falling down, and doing that thing
with the coals of the cigarette (BTW, Pynchon does this cigarette coal
thing with Weissman doesn't he, in the train station in GR), Porpentine
hears Girgis and begins to confess to the percieved Bongo-Shaftsbury that
that Goodfellow up there is going to make Victoria fall in love with him.
86.16: Porpentine says.... "you haven't got me quite yet. They are up
there, on my bed, Goodfellow and the girl. We've been together now for two
years, and I can't begin, you know, to count the girls he's done this
to...  snip... I am thinking B-S still doesn't even murder Porpentine
tomorrow on the Train Ride. He's had ample opportunity to do this murdering
Porpentine thing. Why wait? Just put this piteous creature out of his
misery. He's kinda sad, like a sad character from an opera.

More on Impersonations VII-VIII tomorrow.