V.V. (11): Mafia

[Dave Monroe]

By the way, as we all know, I'm as much of one to
stress the inherent indterminacy of language, of text,
as the, er, next guy, but even I'm not sure why J.
Kerry Grant felt it necessary to note that "It is not
clear whether Fergus Mixolydian and Mafia's young
actor are one in the same" (A Companion to V., p.
112), esp. as he leaves so much else in this Chapter
without any comment whatsoever.  Any ideas?  Anyway
...

I obviously don't read Mafia, and, via Mafia Winsome,
Ayn Rand, as being much taken seriously in any way,
shape or form.  Another period-specific, specifically
parodied New York avant-gardism a la Slab's "catatonic
expressionism" (which manages to take in Abstract
Expressionism, Pop Art and Surrealism in one swell
foop).  Then again, I've noted a certain possible
common cause here with Slab, so ...

But it might be interesting is to consider the common
emphasis on "identity" here, Rand's Objectivism and
Sartre's Existentialism and their emphasis on the
"self."  And that "soul" there as well ("Geist"?), in
which "aristocracy" may (or may not) reside, combined
with Mafia's apparent Aryanism, explicit racism ...

Whether or not narrated, mediated by Roony. 
Interesting, by the way, that what is "disturbing"
about Mafia's characters to him is not their "racial
alignment," per se, but its "predictability" (p. 126).
    But perhaps it takes one to know one here. 
Laissez faire sexuality, promiscuous capitalism?  And
those articulations between sex, economics and racism
...

Recommended reading for Chapter 9 ...

McClintock, Anne.  Imperial Leather:
   Race, Gender and Sexuality in the
   Colonial Context.  New York:
   Routledge, 1995.

But am glad to see some discussion of Chapter 8 here. 
It maight not be Stencil's "eight quick
impersonations" or "She hangs on the western wall" or
"Mondaugen's Story" or "V. in love," but this seems an
unduly negelected chapter nonetheless ...

--- jbor <jbor at bigpond.com> wrote:
 
> In the current section Mafia's conversation with
> Benny reveals a somewhat
> different state of play imo:
> 
>      "You tell me you are half-Jewish and
> half-Italian," Mafia was saying in
>     the other room. "What a terribly amusing role.
> Like Shylock, non è vero,
>     ha, ha. There is a young actor down at the Rusty
> Spoon who claims to be
>     an Irish Armenian Jew. You two must meet."
> (224.11)
> 
> I think that Mafia's comments here indicate that
> there is a little more to
> her Theory than Roony allows. Eg. nationality, or at
> least the self-
> proclaimed hybrid "nationalities" which Benny and
> Fergus have assumed, she
> describes as a "role" -- Fergus an "actor", that
> mention of Shylock -- which
> all ties back in to the previously-mentioned
> Spoon-talk about "Sartre's
> thesis that we are all impersonating an identity" at
> eg. 130.34. It will no
> doubt be unpopular to suggest that Mafia, and thus
> Rand, are being linked
> here to Sartre by Pynchon, but such certainly
> appears to be the case.
> Whatever, there's not the out-and-out simplistic
> dismissal of Mafia as a
> character as has been implied imo. Her next comment,
> in response to Benny's
> complaint that the Spoon is "out of my class" yields
> yet another layer of
> subtlety to Mafia's Theory:
> 
>      "Rot," she said, "class. Aristocracy is in the
> soul. You may be a
>     descendant of kings. Who knows?" (224.18)
> 
> I can't help thinking of the Kennedys and Camelot
> and that whole utopianist
> political charade which is the U.S of A. when I read
> this. And, of course,
> Rand's advocacy of the "virtue of selfishness" as
> exemplified by both
> laissez-faire capitalism and sexual promiscuity, her
> contempt for Communism
> and social welfare initiatives, the explicit
> anti-African (and thus by
> implication anti-African American? cf Crockett as "a
> towering and
> clean-limbed example of Anglo-Saxon superiority" at
> 220.1)) pronouncements
> -- neatly packaged as a populist philosophy reaching
> millions -- has
> provided (and does still?) a real boon to that
> idiosyncratically American
> Cold War/moon-walk/Desert Storm nationalism which
> characterised the American
> mindset and has sustained the regime since WWII.
> 
> best
> 
> 
> 
> 


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