VV(18): Thirty-three

[Dave Monroe]

"V. at the age of thirty-three (Stencil's
calculation)" (V., Ch. 14, Sec. ii, p. 408)

>From David Cowart, Thomas Pynchon: The Art of Allusion
(Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1980), Ch. 2,
"Surface and Void: Paintings in V. and The Crying of
Lot 49," pp. 13-30 ...

"Though Stencil should have moved the date of
[Victoria's] 'replacement' [V., p. 410] back fourteen
years to 1899, he identifies V. correctly: she is the
fascist Zeitgeist.  On her very first appearance in
the Florentine episode Pynchon tells us that 'she
found herself acquiring political convictions,
beginning to detest anarchists, the Fabian society,
even the Earl of Rosebery' (p. 166).  Her subsequent
politics may be deduced from a survey of the comapny
she keeps in the years after Florence.  She associates
with the anti-Semitic Itague in Paris; with the
Irredentist Sgherraccio; with the agitator for Italian
sovereignty on Malta, Enrico Mizzi; with D'Annunzio in
Fiume; with Bavarian Nazi Lieutenant Weissmann in the
South-West African protectorate; and with Benito
Mussolini in Italy.
   "Though we do not see her actually consorting with
Hitler and Mussolini, they serve what she represents,
and she is of their generation: V., 1880-1943;
Mussolini, 1883-1945; Hitler, 1889-1945." (p. 18)

And I was recently reminded that our Art Museum here
has a Gabriele Munter (of Die Blaue Reiter fame et
al.) painting titled Im Schwabing (cf. V., p. 242). 
Can't find an online image, but ...

http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m1248/1_87/53560695/print.jhtml

A cheerful, colorful place of bright blue skies and
yellow and orange buildings, apparently ...

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