V.V.(8) Chapter Seven, part 1 - summary

[jbor]

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>From: Michael Perez <studiovheissu at yahoo.com>
>

> Finally, the
> person for whom they have been waiting, a Venezuelan called the
> Gaucho,

The Gaucho is "from the north", possibly "tedeschi" or having "tedesco
blood" (164.12), which makes him north *Italian* born and bred I think. Thus
he has been merely a mercenary in Venezuela. Nominating him (-self ?) thus
as "The Gaucho" he also becomes something of an impostor.

This imposture/mixup is emphasised (somewhat comically) in Section V:

"Gauchos are in Argentina," complains the Venezuelan Vice-Consul, Salazar.
To which his superior, Ratón, replies, as a justification of his paranoia
and over-reaction: "It is all we have to go on. ... It's all the same
continent, is it not?" (176-20) One of the themes of this chapter is how,
both internally and in forming temporary alliances with one another, the
European Consular and F.O. bureaucracies and militia continually manage to
stuff things up (cf. "The Situation") through paranoia, seeing conspiracies
where none exist or even creating them if necessary, getting theoir wires
crossed and bickering amongst themselves, being answerable to distant and
inscrutable authorities (whose motives or understandings of "The Situation"
remain undisclosed) etc. Also, Eurocentric elitism is foregrounded in the
way that regions of exploration and colonisation are lumped together by the
Europeans as a single "Other", rather than as singular ethnicities and
cultures themselves (i.e. distinctions are made between German, Italian,
British, French etc but "alien" nations, continents and peoples -- including
Vheissu -- are perceived to be a homogenous group, and usually classified
under the single term "primitive".)

> but Godolphin just bites his nails

Yes, into tiny little V-segments along the arcs!

> In Eigenvalueís office, we are told, is a set of metal false
> teeth,
> so right at the start of the chapter we revisit the animate/inanimate
> motif.

But the nexus between pulp, enamel, id and superego etc  (as you do point
out) is a far more complex one than such a simple opposition. What is left
out of the animate/inanimate binary so appealing to the critics are the
questions around the location and nature of the "soul" which figure so
prominently in the text -- this is also the crux of old Godolphin's Vheissu
revelation imo.

> In a rather sado-masochistic description of the feelings
> these colors induce in him, which foreshadows events during
> Fopplís Siege Party, Godolphin began to wish he could ìflay that
> tattooing to a heap of red, purple and green debris, leave the veins
> and ligaments raw and quivering and open at last to your eyes and
> your touchî [171.17-20].

But old Godolphin apologises right away, and ascribes this reaction to his
"fever" and what he had witnessed in Khartoum. Perhaps this is dissimulation
on his part, or solicitude or deference to V.'s youth and apparent
"delicacy" (which is a sham of course, cf. the ivory comb which he does not
notice -- later Evan does, however ... ); indeed, old Captain Hugh seems
sincerely surprised and embarrassed by how frank and pathetic his confession
to V. Wren is becoming! Btw I see no real anomaly in the suggestion that
what old Godolphin is talking about here is the *aftermath* of the Mahdi
massacre, or that, as a spy of sorts, he might even have arrived in the city
in advance of the "relief unit" to which he was ostensibly attached (it
continually amazes and annoys me the way critics perceive part of their
business to be, and appear to take delight in, pointing out how an author
"got it wrong"! I'd be pretty certain that Pynchon had read his Brittanica
at the very least!)

> 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.

Yes indeed. The poignancy of Hugh and Evan's reunion and reconciliation
might only be self-flagellation on young Stencil's part after all. And the
Stencillisation and potential skewing of the narrative to come has been set
up right from the start when Stencil says "You must both drop pretense."
(153.31) The absurdity of Stencil's affectation in referring to himself in
the third person (i.e. "objectively", even inanimately perhaps) is
highlighted with this odd and ridiculously inappropriate use of the plural
"you" when he really means "we". (Actually, I'm inclined to see in the
characterisation of Stencil a self-conscious, and somewhat self-deprecating,
Pynchonian self-parody ... )

> even Cellini

The reference to Cellini here might also have been intended to throw the
sculptor's autobiography into the mix (as a balance or different perspective
to that offered in Machiavelli's _The Prince_ perhaps). The amassed
cataloguing of names from recent and more distant Florentine/Italian
politics in this section is extensive indeed: Mazzini (159.2 up), Cavour
(168.23, and again at 194), Garibaldi (176.8), Savonarola (192.11)
Machiavelli of course, the Medici, Vittorio Emmanuele (Victor Emmanuel II?),
perhaps even Caesar/Césare or Cesare Borgia ... Bringing all these patriots,
revolutionaries, conservatives into play here (without ever privileging any
one or another it seems to me) seems to preempt or exemplify the
historiographical relativism or historical relativities with which Pynchon's
fictions are saturated. The various interpretations of Machiavelli's "lion
and fox" metaphor for statesmanship, and the differing responses which these
interpretations engender, seem to me an encapsulation of the wider process
at work.

Cellini info here:

http://www.boglewood.com/cornaro/xcellini.html
http://www.mega.it/eng/egui/pers/bencel.htm

Excerpts from the autobiography here:

http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~acd/site3/Cellini.html

(Salazar is another name which rings a bell btw.)

> There is very much to learn from Stencil's stories.  We
> know that some of the events contained in them are parts of history,
> but the minor players and minor disasters that may have influenced the
> way history was actually played out still might have happened in the
> way Stencil describes.  The ebb and flow toward whatever apocalypse
> might occur is the stuff of life if not history.

(The early reappropriation of the term "holocaust" (194.1) should not go
unnoticed or unremarked either.)

> These are my favorite
> parts of the book anyway, especially the Vheissu bits.

Indeed, it was the first section of the novel that, on initial reading,
really took my breath away. Later readings have made the earlier sections
richer and more accessible too, less opaque, but as a setpiece this
chapter/story is quite brilliant. I think Tanner (in _City of Words_) refers
to the episodic nature of the novel, but how, even so, some of the
sections/stories can be placed aside the very best self-contained American
fictions written in the period of his study. I agree, but think that the
episodes and plot strands have been woven together quite masterfully as
well, whether separately or subsequently or whatever, and that "the novel"
also "works".

best