VV. (10) - Summary & Thoughts Pt. 2

[John Bailey]

Section xi: The Gaucho and his men march on the Venezuelan Consulate using 
horses stolen from the cavalry. The Lion springs into action, and the 
results are, at this point, not that serious. Scuffles break out, confusion, 
though not exactly chaos, is rife. Meanwhile, the Fox , as incarnated in 
Mantissa's plan, is shown to be similarly ludicrous as the by-now quite 
sizable party of art thieves carry two Judas Trees past the fray and enter 
the gallery. The Godolphins are forced to head off for the barge, leaving 
Victoria alone to survey the increasing carnage of the riot. Alone, a change 
comes across her: "It was as if she saw herself embodying  a feminine 
principle, acting as complement to all this exploding, bursting male energy" 
(209) I think that the "saw herself" her is important. As we see the 
progression of V, we discover an increasing tendency in the modern world to 
view oneself, as from another's perspective, as object rather than subject. 
This process comes to its most literal point in V's accelerating efforts to 
physically transform her/itself into an actual object, an assembly of 
inanimate parts. This scene, I believe, shows one of the initial stages of 
this process as an internal one, a psychic re-interpretation of experience 
which also ties it to a mode of Bad Faith, in the Sartrean sense. By viewing 
herself from the outside, Victoria can deny the responsibility she should 
feel towards the riot and her own involvement.

Anyways, in the gallery Mantissa and the boys reach the Birth of Venus and 
Cesare (the brute) begins to carve the canvas from its frame. Mantissa, 
however, is suddenly struck by the colours of the painting and , in a rare 
instance of Stendahl's Syndrome, sees the colours shifting, drawing him back 
into a part of his mind which had until now been fairly safely contained 
behind his sad and weary eyes (see the first description of him on p.159 for 
the first reference to blond seamstress and his suppression of her). His 
feelings here, previously sublimated into a perverse desire for Botticelli's 
painting, are released and he is struck with the realisation that his desire 
is, you got it, that "dream of annihilation". Lacan would be useful here.

"Aspetti!" shouts Mantissa (see note 197.23 following) "You crazy?" asks 
Cesare.

The remainder of the chapter descends once more into crazed flight, 
collisions, rendez-vous and escape. This escape is largely possible because 
of Stencil's interception by Moffit, who tells him the case is being closed 
down. He, we, are denied closure, or answers. This happens repeatedly 
throughout the book, of course, but here it seems to be important. Stencil 
Snr. is pulled out before he can catch his man, Mantissa fails to capture 
his Venus, Evan is parted from Victoria...only Cesare gets his bottle of 
wine.

The final image is of the Judas Tree in front of the Birth of Venus. What is 
striking here is the visual quality of this image. It is almost a mental 
painting in itself. Of course, as it contains another painting, that would 
make it quite Modernist, no? Considering the chapter's timeframe...is that a 
clue?



NOTES - I haven't included that many notes. The language in this section is 
fairly straightforward, and I'm assuming that your average dictionary will 
help with most queries. The Florentine dialect not being the strongest 
string on my harp, I'm very open to some help on translation, as all of the 
online dictionaries I consulted were pretty bunko.

184.18 "non picciol' libro" - not something book? not small book? Any help 
here?

185.24 "e il mio marito!" - And my husband!

186: Mantissa: I don't know if this has been raised yet but I did notice 
that mantissa is a mathematical term, meaning the decimal part of a 
logarithm (ie the part after the decimal point). Not being mathematically 
inclined, I dunno if this could have some bearing on the character, perhaps 
in a similar way to Eigenvalue. It could also be a common Italian name, not 
that that would necessarily rule out its polysemic potential. I've met 
Godolphins but I don't think P. was thinking of them.

The Judas Tree: Cercis Occidentalis, or Redbud. Sometimes called the Judas 
Tree because of its close relationship to the species thought to be the one 
from which Judas Iscariot hanged himself. The leafs are heart-shaped and 
red...Hmmmm. There is a ballet named The Judas Tree but I can't get any info 
in english. Anyone? Also, the raw bark can be used to treat diarrhea. Not 
relevant here, I don't think. But useful.

194. "un' gazz'!" - Can't find a translation of this. Lots of 
abbreviated/colloquial Italian in this chapter!

197.23 "Aspetti" - My translation is 'aspects' (?) Is this right? Can it 
make sense? Also appears at 210.16. Both seem to mean "stop" or something 
similar. Huh?

199.22 "If there were, as some doctors of the mind were beginning to 
suspect, an ancestral memory..." - P. is obviously already familiar with 
Jung et al.


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