VV(18): Stencil's mad time-search

[Dave Monroe]

"If we've not already guessed, 'the woman' is, again, the lady V. of 
Stencil's mad time-search." (V., Ch. 14, Sec. ii, p. 406)

As has already been noted, an interesting narrative, perhaps even authorial, 
intrusion here.  Not just a "stencilized" chapter, but a perhaps (of course 
[?]) "pynchonized" moment here as well.  The narrator intrusively narrating 
Stencil's only now apparent impersonation, only now intrusive 
stencilization.  That "mad" might seem a negative editorial, authorial 
comment, but note taht the narrator (the author?) now shares the possible 
"madness" that "'the woman' is, again, the lady V."  As do, of course, "we," 
who I'm certain have indeed "already guessed" precisely that, to the point 
of "guessed" perhaps being to weak a word here.  "Assumed, more like, most 
likely.  Eigenvalue's caveat (p. 228) is often taken here, elsewhere, as 
damaging (to) Stencil's credibility, as rendering those stencilizations 
incredible, but note "eigenvalue" ...

Main Entry: ei·gen·val·ue
Pronunciation: 'I-g&n-"val-(")yü, -y&(-w)
Function: noun
Etymology: part translation of German Eigenwert, from eigen own, peculiar + 
Wert value
Date: 1927
: a scalar associated with a given linear transformation of a vector space 
and having the property that there is some nonzero vector which        when 
multiplied by the scalar is equal to the vector obtained by letting the 
transformation operate on the vector; especially : a root of the 
characteristic equation of a matrix

http://m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary

... a singular, "peculiar" value vs. the multiple, albeit nonetheless 
peculiar, "values," voices, others, Othernesses, who, which Stencil 
impersonates, channels (as I've also been not-quite-explicitly suggesting) 
nigh-unto-televisually (Stencil as frame, parergon, "outside-the-pattern" 
[p. 225], his antennae that rabbit-eared "V-structure" [p. 226]) ...

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0103&msg=276&sort=date

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0104&msg=60&sort=date

>From Robert Holton, "V.: In the Rathouse of History with Thomas Pynchon," 
Jarring Witnesses: Modern Fiction and the Representation of History (Hemel 
Hempstead, Hartfordshire, UK: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1994), pp. 217-45 ...

"Stencil Jr is finally something like [Hayden] White's traditional historian 
attempting to find both meaning and narrative coherence on history.  His 
facts, of course, are incomplete, so in an effort to represent certain 
historical moments of importance to his overall narrative he must go beyond 
hard facts, blurring further the line separating fiction and history.  
History according to Herbert Stencil,  as his name might suggests, is made 
to fit a pattern.  Yet within the novel it is largely through Stencil's 
narratives that we have access to history ...." (p. 332)

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0103&msg=261&sort=date

... and vs. as well perhaps the "Deracinated" (V., p. 382), "in both senses 
of the word: rootless and without sharp racial distinctions" (Holton p. 331) 
Whole Sick Crew, who take up the presumably unstncilized other chapters.  
Well, just something I wanted to bring up (again), is all ...
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