MDDM Ch. 40 Capt. V.

[Dave Monroe]

   "The 'Uncle' seems young for one of that
Designation, his Hair a-shine with some scented
Pomade, side-whiskers shav'd to quite acute Angles,
his hand ever straying to consult the over-siz'd and
far from ornamental Dirk he wears in a Scabbard upon
his Belt." (M&D, Ch. 40, p. 400)

   "'Look what Pussy's brought in,'leers a Half-Breed
with a braided Queue." (M&D, Ch. 40, p. 401)

Well, no braided queue, but ...

http://eas1.exit.de/stmagazine/mirror-mirror-1.jpg

http://www.startrek.com/content/PHOTO/tos/039_01.jpg

http://www.public.asu.edu/~gotham/kaine/mirror2.jpg

"'Oh, he's all right,' decides 'Amy''s 'Uncle,' whose
Sobriquet (for few here use Christian Names) is
'Captain Volcanoe.'" (M&D, Ch. 40, p. 403)

Main Entry: vol·ca·no 
Pronunciation: väl-'kA-(")nO, vol-
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -noes or -nos
Etymology: Italian or Spanish; Italian vulcano, from
Spanish volcán, ultimately from Latin Volcanus Vulcan
Date: 1613
1 : a vent in the crust of the earth or another planet
from which usually molten or hot rock and steam issue;
also : a hill or mountain composed wholly or in part
of the ejected material
2 : something of explosively violent potential

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

   "'We shall all of us learn, who they are,' Capt. V.
with a melancholy Phiz, 'and all too soon.'" (M&D, Ch.
40, p. 408)

>From Dana Medoro, "Traces of Blood and the Matter of a
Paraclete's Coming: The Menstrual Economy of Pynchon's
V.," Pynchon Notes 44-45 (Spring-Fall 1999), pp. 14-34
...

   "While the patriarchal legacies in V. attempt to
write and perpetuate themselves across the idealized,
passive female body, V.'s is not necessarily a
maternal or material power .... Although Maijstral's
memoirs (his legacy to his daughter) circulate around
an obsession with the maternal feminine, matriarchy
cannot be patriarchy's alternative in the text; it is
only an inverse reflection of Maijstral's anxiety
about a world at war....  This anxiety is displaced
onto a V.-figure, whom he believes to be in some way
occasioned by the war .... her scattered pieces
reemerge in the hands of other women.  These women, as
manifestations of V., appear throughout the novel as
prostitutes, virgins, mothers, lesbians, nuns.
   "What cuts across each representation of female
sexuality is menstruation; it is the link among women
scattered throughout a world divided by violent
masculine givernance.... proliferating allusions to
menstruation and menstrual blood ....  Like V.
herself, menstrual blood materializes in veiled,
ambivalent forms, provoking male dread and
fascination.  As an aspect of V., it equivocated her
alignment with either maternity or death; she embraces
each.  Menstruation is both a positive and a negative
power, the blood simultaneously an announcement of
fertility and its negation." (pp. 23-4)

"The blood spilled by twentieth-century hostilitites,
the blood which appears to usher in V., potentially
signifies its opposing terms: renewal, synchrony, even
a refusal to reproduce the systems of violence.  As
Pynchon himself is rumored to insist, the title of the
book is not V but V. [V-period] ...." (p. 24)

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=9411&msg=408&sort=date

   "V. is a threshold figure, bridging sacred and
profane, presence and absence, past and present.  She
displaces either/or oppositions, marking the limits of
order and containing it." (p. 28)

"In V., the Old World father leaves a legacy to his
(metaphorically) New World son, cryptically encoded as
V.  Perhaps the legacy is America, the Virgin Land,
where the promise of cyclical regeneration for a
fallen world lies latent.  Here, the promise and the
warning materialize in V., a figure who embraces
oppositions.  Her womb is both threatening and fertile
-- like America, according to the imagery of the old
sermons." (p. 31)

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