VV (19) Disposal of Profane

[Terrance]

John Bailey wrote:
> 
> I'd certainly never considered Profane's final
> 'trajectory' (thanks Dave) as a suicidal one, though it
> does resonate with a lot of V. and GR themes, as well as
> putting a new slant on Stencil Sr's last boat
> trip. But I would have to add (and I'm *guessing* that
> everyone else would agree) that the text is very ambiguous
> on this point (big surprise there).
> 
> On the suicide theme in V....
> 
> I think that 'suicide' in V (and GR?) is of real interest
> as they breakdown the kinds of active/passive or
> aggressor/victim relationships that P toys with throughout
> his work. Most obviously, take the Herero who turn suicide
> into an aggressive act of resistance (the personal as the
> political)....

Anti-fertility maybe. Remember in GR Enzian lists all the
sexual/reigious acts. 
The clash of religions, christian sickness infects, the sick
crew in love with 
death, the dead "Romanitic" poets, the mechanical bird
consuming and dropping death out of life, shit is death
literally in life in GR and is repressed, the blackness and
so on,  giving fertility to the tree that grows and
gradually impales the bird on the 
gargoyle's fangs (or whatever), the alligators sign a
contract with Benny, he will give them death, they will give
him labor (Benny compares this with his labor of love,
wageless ass breaking sexless relationship with Fina). The
alligators seek death because they have been taken out of
nature ("once out of Nature"  Yeats) and sold as trinkets
for the market, but Benny expects them to be passive, to
take Death like any passive woman, an object, a PASSION that
is unmistakably Catholic and thus set in the Parish of the 
Jesuit who has blessed the waters. Von Trotha is the Christ
figure, a Saint, ironically,  of the Herero. Fopple kisses
his portrait, a Catholic (not only RC)  ritual. Does anyone
know of any other sect of Christianity wherein the
parishioners kiss the portraits, the feet of idols and
icons. In the feasts, Benny attends one in NYC, actually P
mixes three together, this a common practice, one kisses the
portraits of saints, and clips money on them, there are
several holy days of obligation where RC parishioners kiss
statues and portraits. Remember also the abortion theme,
both Fausto's Mother and his wife consider suicide while
they are with child. Again, the RC 
parody is unmistakable, but in each case, the RC is
perverted (is Gnosticized), the black Mass, the girl that
rests here head on V's lap, drowned, and so there are two
novitiate suicides in that chapter, both Maline's and the
girl at the mass. This sends  to Malta where the Bad Priest
id unmistakably  Manichean (Confessions, St Augustine). 
She tells Paola's mother to abort the child and join her
convent where sex is 
an abomination, voyeuristic, fetishism, sterile, quick and
the dead, the binary is broken, the tension is not
sustained, the girls will all be Virgins and the boys will
be precious stones. This is Gnostic.   





But there's also an element (and this comes
> out in Melanie's death too) of tragedy here, and though
> I've said it before I think it bears repeating that I
> believe P is as interested in the way modern forms of
> power are linked to the death of women. In my opinion it's
> all there, and he's pointing the finger at a whole history
> of art, technology, religion etc which get a buzz from a
> woman's death...a woman's suicide is the result of this
> overwhelming pressure to die. Ombindi pretty much states
> the same thing in regard to his ideas of tribal suicide in
> GR, at least regarding his motivation.

Right on. 
> 
> So for these (badly explained) reasons I don't know that
> it fits that Benny would commit suicide, unless...well, I
> kind of see that he's a schlemiel because he sees his
> persecution from all the wrong angles. 

I agree, but Benny's "death" is a death in life. 


He's not a Paranoid
> in the way Pynchon would *seem* to approve, he's not
> trying to escape the System, or They, or anyone. 

I don't think P approves of this escape. In fact, the
attempt to escape, to break out of the natural cycle of
infection and death is worst thing one can do in P's
nightmares. 


He blames
> tyres, chairs, other victims, and only occasionally sees
> past this....But then, as he states, he hasn't learnt one
> thing in the end. So why would he turn to suicide? Ah
> well, why not, why not...
> 
> The other thing I appreciate in P's suicides are the way
> they are not just narrative cop-outs. Once you notice the
> ways in which a whole range of novels, films etc end with
> the suicide of whoever is causing all the darn trouble,
> you start to really respect it when things are dealt with
> a little better. In P, we're never left with the cops
> standing on the wharf shaking their heads ('I guess he
> tawt it wuz da only way out') or a distraught mother being
> petted on the shoulder ('The way I see it - a part of her
> died long before all this')...

Right on, thank you so much. 

PS Thanks too, to Sam.