V.V. (13) Lhamon

[jbor]

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>From: Dave Monroe <davidmmonroe at yahoo.com>
>
> 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 ...

I think Lhamon contends that there are six personifications of V., each of
whom is explicitly identified by "her" possession of that comb. However,
nowhere in the text is Vera Meroving mentioned as owning or having the comb
in her keeping (Lhamon even provides the page numbers where the comb is
referred to in the novel: only Victoria Wren, the Bad Priest of Valetta, and
Paola, are described as having the comb in their possession). Lhamon
discounts Hedwig Vogelsang's V-status on this basis of non-comb-possession,
and by implication seems to want to include Vera Meroving, but it is an
attempt to discriminate between the various V-characters and manifestations
on the basis of evidence which is not in fact present in the text.

I think the comb might be just another red herring in Stencil's (and the
reader's) quest for meaning, a tantalising detail which promises some
concrete revelation of identity or symbolic signification, but which, in the
long run, doesn't provide any such thing, a detail which in fact merely adds
to the ultimate indeterminacy of "V".

> And still astounded
> that Lhamon's "PP&P" didn't come up on the Infonet
> here, though it didn't help that I searched every word
> beginning with "P" BUT "Pentecost" and "Promiscuity."

Yes, ironic in that you've more than proved your facility with the keyword
search function of an on-line library catalogue here ...

best