VV(9) - Evan & Hugh

[David Morris]

[MY hotmail account has gone south for the moment, but I apologize that this
might be posted by both accounts:]

Michael,

I completely agree, but our focus is different.  These are Stencil's stories,
but this time they are oral, told to a psychiadent.  Even though Eigenvalue
interrupts midstream, lest we forget to be skeptical, there is no doubt that
the story we read is far beyond the spoken medium.  This is a cinematic trick
as well: the narrator begins to speak and we fade to a dramatic scene.  In
between the narrator and the film scene is a director, a script, and a cast of
actors.  Of course Pynchon is demonstrating the multiple levels of uncertainty
in narrative.  But to stop there is to discount any further value in the text,
any message beyond uncertainty.

I propose that one might read with a suspended disbelief, and thus recieve a
message which might otherwise be filtered out.  Uncertainty might still remain,
but it could be tolerated.

David Morris

>From: Michael Perez 
>>David wrote:
>>"But Evan's yearnings for that missing 'something which should have existed,
but did not,' is enough to overcome his 'heart's vagrancy.' Evan is truly
searching for the bonds of _relationship_, the lack of which is the root of his
determined rebellion.  The implication here is that Evan's determined vagrancy
is born of an anger, an injury, usually called rejection:  a need un-met: that
of a loving father (and his mother never mentioned).  This need is 'catholic.'
>>
>>"Is this all Stencil's need?  Maybe.  But for me the message is more
important than the messenger.  FORGET REALITY!!!  Reality in this text is
unattainable, but the message survives.
>
>Yes, but it is Stencil's message.  We hear of Evan only through Stencil and,
yes, this "searching for the bonds of _relationship_" is Stencil's need.  The
way Stencil relates Evans exploits is the way Stencil wants to be remembered
with regard to his belated loyalty to his father's legacy.  The intrigue he
tracks down has already run its course.  The history he tracks down is
incomplete as all history is.  Part of what Stencil allows us to realize is
that reality related in the form of history is "unattainable," as you say.
>
>Michael

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