V.V. (15) The "Bad" Priest

[Samuel Moyer]

>
> The "memory is a traitor" bit reminds me of Eigenvalue's meditations on
the
> crests and folds of history where he conjectures that "*we*" are "conned
> into a false memory, a phony nostalgia" for the past (256.3), and also the
> "five million different rathouses" of history in New York passage at
225.27,
> which seems to be a detached narrator speaking. Certainly seems to be a
> theme latent or developing in all of that .... A deliberate foregrounding
of
> the myth of historical objectivity .... A shift towards a type of
> postmodernist perspectivism .... ?



I missed the Memory is a traitor bit... Yeah, the guy comes off so honest,
you want to believe every word and I think I did my first go around... Now I
have to go back and compare to Eigenvalue... This line of thinking is
interesting... What about Foppl's 1904... Goldophin and Vheissu...?

I should search the archives first, but this reminds me also of Rachel's
employer "Space/Time Employement Agency."  I have always wondered about that
name.  It sort of gives me nightmares of my graduate advisor... he was
always going on about Space and Time... Now I have to quote from one of his
required readings:  Richard Marius, A Short Guide to Writing About History.
"Historians nearly always write as if the people they write about had the
power to choose.  The tension between what they chose and what they might
have done gives history its excitement.  Herbert Butterfield, a philosopher
of history, wrote, 'History deals with the drama of human life as the affair
of individual personalities, possessing self-consciousness, intellect, and
freedom.'  Tolstoy, by contrast, in his novel (War and Peace), wrestled with
the idea of freedom, observing that 'to conceive a man perfectly free, not
subject to the law of necessity, we must conceive a man outside of space,
outside of time, and free from all dependence on cause.' (7)

The agency was chosen based on the "pure chance" instance of Profane's
hardon pressing the classifieds on that particular ad (animate - inanimate -
dependence on cause?).  Given the Tolstoy bit above, Profane's sense of
freedom (I need some time to develop that idea) and the fact that he goes
inside of Space, inside of Time  (V. 215).  I don't want to make to much of
this, but the Agency is named Space/Time (odd!) and he does go into it, and
there is this Tolstoy quote (I've never made it past the first 100 pages of
War and Peace).... and I think, jbor, that you are on to something when you
suggest that there "seems to be a theme latent or developing in all of that
.... A deliberate foregrounding of the myth of historical objectivity."

Profane is subject to the law of necessity.  Running low on cash, needs to
eat, must find a job.
Profane is not free from dependence on cause... unless we accept his hardon
landed on Space/Time as a matter of Pure Chance (as he claims).
So what?  is there some theory on Freedom here?  And what about Maijstral...
Fausto has his space/time confession (I think we can put it that way).  Does
Fausto mean to tell Paola that he made the choices he did because he was not
free to choose otherwise... that the historian's method doesn't hold for
him, that he was subject to laws he had no control over, as in Tolstoy?  I
am in a little over my head here.  (perhaps Cause an effect are reversed and
Profane directs his rocket to the ad....)


> > This letter was bothering her back when she was McClintric's Ruby....
>
> Yes, I'd forgotten about that. She's continually worried about Fausto, and
> McClintic, not realising where he lives, keeps telling her to go see him.
> But I'm not sure that she has actually received the letter yet when
they're
> arguing about it endlessly. (291-4)

> I get the impression that she shows the letter to Stencil virtually as
soon
> as she's received and read it. This might either be a betrayal of Fausto
or
> it could be that the letter has been the trigger for her decision to go
back
> to Malta and see her dad, and she is merely trying to con some willing
dupe
> into taking her there. I'm leaning towards the latter interpretation now.
I
> think that the letter might have been the incentive for her to rejoin the
> WSC, become Paola again, and leave McClintic. It certainly helps to
explain
> why she leaves McClintic so suddenly after all, and renders a real pathos
to
> their star-crossed relationship.


I guess that I think she has the letter for a while... She seems very
concerned about her dad... and I can't tell how long it is between the time
Ruby and McClintric have that talk about going to see her dad and the time
she actually shows it to Stencil...

As far as using Stencil as transportation... yeah... Pappy provided the
means and the warmth/love (?) to bring her to America... now Stencil and
Benny Profane provide this on the return...  I am also thinking of the bus
ride to NYC from Norfolk earlier, in which Profane provides the shoulder to
lean on and the ticket (I think he does).

Of course there will be more references to consider when we get to the last
two chapters.

Sam - who once foolishly attempted to keep a chart on all these times,
places, and relationships and ended up with something closer to a Jackson
Pollock canvas.