V. (Ch 3) Max's (other) disgrace/Alice

[Terrance]

Mac B or Max is not the devil and dry eyed Alice does not
qualify as poster child. Pynchon mocks such extremes. 


But Mac is one of the Imperialists, one of the Colonial
narrators.  If we did
an an old compare and contrast, mostly literal, no, not
really, just can't help it, with, say, one  non-colonial
narrator-- Waldetar,  and considered the children, we might
see
that Pynchon, as he will in all his fictions, 

[remember that V like Slothrop is a Don Giovani, in fact
Pynchon lists the
sexual exploits of Don G./Slothrop and V., Slothrop also 
"becomes English" and eventually, on that Colonial Ship of
Love/Death he has sexual relations with Bianca, Weissmann
and Enzian, also colonial S&M.]  

Why has Stencil or why has Pynchon created Mac? Who is Mac?
It seems that he was once
MAC Burgess, maybe some one else before that, 

but now here's a little Irish trivia, why is it an insult to
call an
Irishman MAC? Not Mic, now that's a different insult
altogether? 


Anyway, Mac is from Scotland and I won't go into the history
that Pynchon is developing here, not yet,  but a certain
colonial historical pattern is at work here and now Scotland
has been brought into it,   but anyway,  here we have an
impersonation of a British expatriate in Baedeker Alex. MAC
was a young Lochinvar come down to the then wide enough
horizons of the Vaudeville business. Lochinvar? Yes he's a
Scot all right. Maybe his name is some conglomeration of
MacLean & Burgess; big names in the long & shady history of
English spookdom, Trailerman says, "MacLean, indeed, did
much of his spying while at the British Embassy in Cairo,
between 1948 and his speedy departure to
Moscow along with Burgess who had warned him that his cover
was blown," and maybe his name suggests that he's Burgess
from MAC or Scotland, but in any event,  why does Stencil or
Pynchon (and you can get or not get the allusion to Lewis
Carroll here)
introduce the aggressive, sexually precocious child? I don't
think it's because Pynchon is sympathetic to Mac, that he
condones Mac's actions. In fact, I think he he denounces
them, mocks Mac's colonial exploits and his sexual ones at
the same time.  Pynchon's most cherished preterite are
children, very Dickensian. B-S wants to destroy humanity, he
goes after Mildred. Mildred, the child Mac may look over,
young enough, but she is stocky and myopic, not long and
lean like Alice and she is only the sister of the RC
Victoria and she seems to be sticking with that rock and
will later part company with her not so Orthodox sister. 
Victoria wants to have the Groom, Christ all to herself, she
leaves the convent, plays colonial god and aboriginal satan
Especially during Mass. Sorry, but Wood is wrong, Pynchon's
allegory is not the problem, Wood seems to be confused about
how allegory has and does function in satire. 


Some may read it differently, my answer is, as Alice said to
Humpty Dumpty, so sure of himself was he, you have the book
upside-down ;-).  I could explain this by explaining
Pynchon's allegory, his metaphors at play, his allusions,
even if they
are broken, but we can take a very literal look, put the
looking glass aside for a moment and look at the the literal
text. This is a good idea, I don't have any problem with the
literal reading, how the characters stand on are their own,
engage, act, speak...I'll come to the same reading.
Victoria, in fact the Vs are sexually aggressive, the
men they seduce passive for the most part, when we get to V
in Love, where another child, abused by her own father, will
be involved, it will be clear that Pynchon's sexually
precocious, aggressive, sexually active children, are in
fact
victims. 


http://www.northrim.net/thompson/poem_lochinvar.htm

PS Habermas, yeah, I like him, good balance to Lyotard, but
you know I'm a student of Richard McKeon and Dewey.