V.V. (17) current chapter

[Swing Hammerswing]

>1) V's "identity"
>
>Stencil's recount of V's escapades in Chapter 13 (386-388) demonstrates
>pretty conclusively that she is, and is intended to be, a fictitious
>character. There is a plethora of "names" in the summary of her
>acquaintances which Stencil provides for Profane, however, none of them 
>lend
>any support to the speculation that V is meant to be any one actual
>historical personage.

Yeah.


>
>
>2) "story"/storey
>
>Even though it is standard US usage, I can't help but hear a pun in the
>following passage:
>
>     ... There'd be no reward from Stencil because there's no honor among
>     second- (or ninth-) story men. Because Stencil was more a bum than
>     he. (390.7)
>
>A "second-storey man" is a burglar who enters premises through an upstairs
>window, which fits with what Stencil and Profane are doing. And this
>recognition that Stencil is more of a "bum" than Profane is a pretty 
>crucial
>one I think. But on a reflexive level the quip that there's "no honor among
>second- (or ninth-) story men" relates to the way that Pynchon's postmodern
>fictions are constructed, how ideas and stories are "stolen" from prior
>sources. The nesting of narratives within narratives (within a narrative)
>typifies much of his fiction, particularly in this novel and in _M&D_, and
>is a defining characteristic of the postmodern genre itself. And, there is 
>a
>distinct sense in which Stencil, and his creator, are themselves "second-
>(or ninth-) story men". Pynchon's foregrounding (and somewhat
>self-deprecatory self-consciousness -- "no honor") of the way that all 
>texts
>are always already constructed from other texts -- his own included -- is
>another common feature within his literary mode, one which places him and
>his work firmly into the postmodern genre I think.

Interesting that Brian McHale says that niether V. nor
CL49 is Postmodernist, both, he maintains, are Modernist.

In his latest essay on Pynchon's M&D, he says, that the
traditional historical novel is systematically
"postmodernized" and then goes on to say that Ethelemer
speaks for the "postmodern" in  the now famous history & fiction debate.  
Why Ethelmer? In any event, McHale, I suspect,
has given up on the idea that Pynchon is the Postmodernist
although he can't help but toss the
term postmodern, always inside  quotation marks,  into his otherwise 
brilliant essay; the Nested levels and frames are now traced back to the 
classic frame-tales, The Arabian Nights, The Decameron, The Canterbury 
Tales. Now I always said that if Pynchon is a
Postmodernist, so must be Faulkner, Joyce, Melville, Fielding,
Swift, Chaucer....nex we will be reading that T.S. Eliot
was a Postmodernist.





>
>
>3) Pynchon's attitude to homosexuality
>
>The depiction of the attempted entrapment of "Neil" in a Central Park beat
>by a plain-clothes cop (392) readily shows that Pynchon is neither
>homophobic nor anti-gay, as some have attempted to suggest.

I don't recall ever reading any serious critical attempt
to do this? Can you tell us who or what you are talking
about? No, probably not, but I do hope that if a critic
had the balls to do so he/she provided more textual support
than you have provided here. Pynchon's sympathies are clearly not
with the nark, but with Niel, and I would agree on this your reading of  
this scene in V. is spot on.



This brief
>interlude connects with comparable episodes and comments in _GR_ (eg.
>680.16, 688-690, 722.11-16).


You can explain these? No, probably not.


In fact, I'd go so far as to say that it's an
>extremely brave and unusual scene for the early 60s!


I disagree, plenty of scenes like this in the 50s and early
60s literature in America, compared with gay literature of the period  this 
is not even close to bold.



It's certainly outside
>the moral mainstream of that era, and pre-emptive of civil rights movements
>of later in the decade.

Yes.

>
>
>4) "Them"
>
>The capitalisation of "Them" at 368.12 pre-empts the "They" used throughout
>_GR_, and illustrates that Pynchon appropriated the pronoun usage
>idiosyncratically to refer to an abstraction (in this case "the inanimate
>world", in _GR_ to a or the "System") rather than to human individuals or
>groups.
>

Yes, capitalized in mid sentence.


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