V.

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

Very much so, with the self revelation/denial of revelation mambo at its most 
frenzied in The Crying of Lot 49. And you forgot Mason & Dixon. A later William 
Pynchon is responsible for a 'day book' that corresponds with the years of M & 
D:

http://tinyurl.com/39qg5q

The Rev. Thomas Ruggles Pynchon III assisted with the production of this volume.

I see Benny and Stencil as two halfs of the same person, Sacred [or maybe just 
plain obsessed] and Profane, Scholar and Schlimiel. And I see the author using 
Pynchon family history as some sort of touchstone for the broken promises of the 
American Myth.
 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: "Roman Kudryashov" <rkudryashov at gmail.com>
> Not to be blatantly obvious, naive, or outdated by someone else's post
> (I'm kinda new to the list, inexperienced, and catching up from T-day
> break), are you suggesting, whereas "Gravity's Rainbow" and "Against
> The Day" were written as with a basis of a study of TRP's family
> history, "V." would be about him trying to figure out who he is in his
> family and what exactly his history encompasses? Reading the "Been
> Down So Long..." analysis someone posted here, would suggest so, if
> the idea is applied to TRP:
> 
> " By his own admission, Fariña was still in the process of 'resolving
> the conflict between Inside and Outside'...  " For amid those years
> lay the agonizing self-definition that always goes into a first novel,
> and behind that charming smile lurked haunting doubts and demons.
> Richard had begun the novel in 1960, based largely on the experiences
> of his college years and his travels. Widely dismissed today as an
> amateurish tour-de-force or a distubing reminder of hipster
> chauvinism, Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me is most
> illuminating not as a document of social history but as a
> haunted-house ride into the mind of a great folk artist and
> songwriter, a frightening Freudian-slippery slide into the soul "
> 
> I havent actually read V. but I would like to know if thats anywhere
> near plausible.
> 
> 
> Original Message:
> Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2007 20:18:15 +0000
> From: robinlandseadel at comcast.net
> Subject: V.
> 
>           NEHGS members will soon receive the third (Summer 2000)
>           issue of New England Ancestors, which contains among other
>           items the last of my five columns on British, European and
>           American descendants of the Lygons of Madresfield,
>           Worcestershire. That article covers the noted progeny of two
>           Deighton sisters whose descendants are largely associated
>           during the colonial period with Taunton, Mass., and of their
>           cousin Mrs. Amy Wyllys Pynchon of Springfield, Mass.
>           Noticeably absent from it is the most famous Pynchon of the
>           modern period - the novelist Thomas Ruggles Pynchon (V),
>           author of V. . . .
> 
> http://tinyurl.com/ehgqn
> 
> I'll repeat that for those of you who may be on drugs.
> 
>              . . . .novelist Thomas Ruggles Pynchon (V),
>           author of V. . . .
> 
>                                             V
> 
>                                                      V
> 
>                                                         V. . . .