VV (19) Disposal of Profane

[Samuel Moyer]

You're welcome Terrance.  And I appreciate everyone kicking this around.
Terrance (John and Dave, too) I like this, especially the pact with the
alligators (damn, why didn't I think of that?).  But once again you have
managed to provide some excellent analysis without weighing in... ha ha...
so, is it a suicide (Benny and Brenda).... no matter...

When I get some more time....

Sam

----- Original Message -----
From: "Terrance" <lycidas2 at earthlink.net>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Monday, July 16, 2001 10:07 AM
Subject: Re: VV (19) Disposal of Profane


>
>
> 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.