V.V. (13) Lhamon

[Dave Monroe]

Okay, you've done your homework, very good ...

--- jbor <jbor at bigpond.com> wrote:
> 
> William T. Lhamon Jr's thesis in _Deliberate Speed:
> The Origins of a 
> Cultural Style in the American 1950s_ (Smithsonian
> Institution Press, 1990)
> is that there was a coalescing of American
> "activist" (passim) culture (i.e.
> photography, painting, plays, film, Beat literature,
> jazz and r&b, the Civil
> Rights movement) in the mid-50s into a "recognizable
> aesthetic" (xiv), and
> that Pynchon's _V._ is something of a culmination.
> And, despite his mistaken
> contention that "'Mondaugen's Story' is not really
> Mondaugen's, but Foppl's"
> (213),

I think Lhamon perhaps misstates his case here, at
least ...

 and his neglect of V's (arguably) active
> role/s in both the telling
> thereof *and* the action therein, he does make many
> perceptive comments
> about Pynchon's "parody of modernism" (205) in the
> novel. 

Agreed, esp. in parallel with Wittgenstein ...

For example, he
> notes, quite correctly imo, that "Pynchon's send-ups
> remain ambiguous"

Agreed as well, though "ambiguous" is perhaps too,
well, "ambiguous" here.  "Ambivalent"?  Or, perhaps
more strongly, "polyvalent"?  

> (though I suspect that Lhamon was, at least
> partially, forced to adopt this
> viewpoint in order to maintain his overall thesis in
> the study):

Not sure what you mean here.  A matter of logical
priority and/or sequence?  The "overall thesis"
"forces" "this viewpoint"?  Perhaps "this viewpoint"
"forces" the "overall thesis."  Is there necessarily
any "forcing" going on here?  On Lhamon's part, at any
rate?  And so forth ...

> Lhamon addresses the reflexiveness of Pynchon's
> method -- the elements of
> self-parody, the way that Pynchon "scoffs at his own
> work" (235) -- and this
> is something which I agree is distinctive about
> Pynchon's fiction.

Not so sure about "distinctive" (vs. ...?), but,
again, I do think those Pynchonian texts (a-and
m-maybe even Pynchon hisself) make certain
determinations ... complicated, difficult,
nigh-unto-impossible, even.  But, again, the fine (but
definite nonetheless) line between "polyvalent"
(perhaps pointing to multiple possibilities?) and
"ambiguous" (perhaps pointing to no particular
possibility?), perhaps ...

> But I think Lhamon underplays, or misapprehends, the
> significance of V's
> indeterminate identity in the text:
> 
>     ... Throughout the historical chapters, Pynchon
> used ["V.'s carved ivory
>     comb"] to indicate the continuity of its
> possessor despite the radical
>     gaps in both her personality and story. As her
> persistent trait, the
>     comb distinguishes V. from apparently similar
> characters (Hedwig
>     Vogelsang, for instance). (239)
> 
> I think that it's actually the proliferation of V's
> and V-shapes, both human
> and non-human (eg. Veronica the sewer rat, Vheissu,
> Venus), which makes the
> concept of "V" an ultimately (and intentionally)
> unfixable one.

Certainly makes things complicated, problmatic,
difficult, nigh-unto-impossible.  But there are,
perhaps, significant differences (and when do
differences not signify? is my question) between, say,
characters whose names begin with or otherwise include
a "V" and characters who (furthermore) are described
at some point as having that comb ...
 
> Lhamon also wrote a review of _GR_ upon its
> publication, and has been a
> long-standing member of the Pynchon critindustry.
> His review is only so-so,
> nowhere near as good as Michael Wood's in the _NY
> Review of Books_, but he
> does emphasise the importance of Ralph Ellison's
> _Invisible Man_ for
> Pynchon's work:

Often noted, but worth noting nonetheless ...

>       In his underground room, the invisible man
> used the junk of New
>     York City (sockets, wire, bummed marijuana) to
> create a new world of
>     meaning; it was a world of gadgetry, of 1369
> lightbulbs and planned
>     labor-saving devices -- not bad for 1952, but
> not good enough for the
>     invisible man, who returns to street level. In
> _GR_ the displaced tribe
>     of Hereros, also black of course, makes a totem
> of the German rocket and
>     literally a life-giving ritual of reconstructing
> it from the wastes of
>     the war. Theirs is also a furtive underground
> life, but movable,
>     communal. And that is enough for them. They
> forswear tribal suicide, and
>     they forswear any sort of sell-out. They don;t
> go back in. Pynchon's
>     underground rooms are filled with heretical
> outcasts intrepidly
>     performing profound rites ....
>                         (Lhamon, 'The Most
> Irresponsible Bastard', _New
>                           Republic_ 168:15, April 14
> 1973, pp. 24-28)

I'm convinced I've read something else by Lhamon on
Pynchon beyond that review and this chapter, but I
don't seem to have it at hand and can't find it on
line.  Even his review isn't cited in teh bibliography
to Deliberate Speed.  In one or another of teh
anthologies of Pynchoniana , Pynchonalia, whatever ...

> While his comment that the Hereros "forswear tribal
> suicide" in _GR_ is
> nearly as big a clanger 

Why so?  Depends on which Herero faction you're
talking about, perhaps ...

as his contention that
> Mondaugen's story is entirely
> or actually Foppl's in _V._ (obviously, close
> reading of the texts is not
> one of his strong points)

Well, don't know about that, but at least he does read
them ...

 the comparisons he makes
> with Ellison's novel are
> indeed apt and important ones. 

Reads more "closely" in some cases than others? 
Perhaps it's not a matter of proximity and/or
attentiveness here ...

And, that description
> of "heretical outcasts
> intrepidly performing profound rites" would seem to
> apply to Blicero as much
> as it does to Enzian & co.

Well, now here's where some "close" reading, some
attention to detail, to fine lines, to differences,
might be to the point, but ...


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