vv: endless search

[lorentzen-nicklaus]

 "stencil wishes to discover whether v simply turns up at every earth-shattering 
event, or whether she is the actual cause of the event; whether she is real 
woman or simply clockwork. to make such a judgement he has to know a lot about v 
and the more he discovers the more trouble he has deciding what is relevant. the 
problem of v, as stencil perceives it, the problem of accident and intention, is 
also therefore a problem of context. the problem v is first raised in the 
context of writing. v first occurs to stencil as a note in a diary, already read 
and glossed over. he last mentions her in another note left to maijstral. she 
has by this time fallen to pieces. all stencil is following by this time is 
spare parts. one may well ask why he continues to look for her when it is clear 
that she has been completely dismantled. but obviously the search can only 
become more of an obsession when she is in bits and pieces. stencil's activity 
grows in intensity in inverse proportion to v's unity. if v is the end of 
stencil's search, then v is about there being no end to it." 

  --- alec mchoul & david wills: writing pynchon. strategies in fictional       
                                 analysis. london 1990: macmillan press ltd.
                                 pp. 180f. ---


 kfl //:: ps: when i bought this book, early 90s, it was not for its content 
          (which i come, these days, to appreciate more and more), but - 
          spontaneously - for its graphical design, especially this beautiful   
          "tintin et milou" cover: that's how a pynchon-study should look!