V. thrills readers with complexity

[Dave Monroe]

V. thrills readers with complexity
Posted 11-14-2007 at 8:05PM
Max Canaday
Staff Reporter

Thomas Pynchon writes insane books. That is, the books themselves will
not exhibit psychotic qualities and attack your family, but rather
they tell dozens of stories at once, all involving somewhat insane,
eccentric characters with varying degrees of impulsiveness and
detachment from the world and culture around them. This, combined with
a structure and style that is equally unique, dark, sarcastic, and
humorous, makes for an interesting read. V. is Pynchon's first novel,
and it debuts this definitive (if "wild" is definitive) writing style
which he would retain and develop further for his future works.

V. centrally depicts the stories of two men, one Benny Profane, a
"schlemiel" for whom life happens noncommittally, and Stencil, who has
made it his own personal quest and reason for living to search for
some mysterious "V.," possibly a woman, using every available clue
from whatever odd and imaginative corners of the world Pynchon could
conjure up.

There are a considerable number of flashbacks in addition to the
chapter segments on Profane, Stencil, and a collection of bohemians
known as The Whole Sick Crew, who sort of waste away somewhere in New
York. One member, Winsome, points out that, "You cannot point to any
one of the Crew and call them well," and gives a short summary of each
of them. Slab, an artist with great talent, has one weakness: he
obsesses over cheese danishes and therefore paints such wonders as
Cheese Danish No. 52. Winsome then discovers defenestration, the act
of throwing something out of a window, and, straightening his tie,
prepares to defenestrate once and for all, but is caught in mid-air,
and sent away to a box.

There are too many side-plots with similar degrees of craziness to
recount here, though, so I will give one example of how the two main
storylines cross. Stencil at one point goes into a sewer on a lead
from a journal of a mad priest named Father Fairing who lived in a
sewer and preached to rats. Each rat had its own name, and was a
potential meal for Fairing, which was a justifiable loss in return for
spiritual nourishment. One of the rats, whom he names "V.," he
describes as odd, rebellious, and attractive to him. By some other
chance, Profane had found a job shooting alligators in the sewer with
thanks to three Puerto Rican kids named Tolito, Jose, and Kook. As he
fired a shotgun round into the darkness, he accidentally hit Stencil,
who was down there on the search for V., but neither of them knew much
about it because Profane had not met Stencil yet. Their stories,
however, were beginning to come together even at that early point in
the novel.

The importance of the letter V, aside from being the name of some
mysterious woman with many disguises, is that it is the unifying
concept to the madness of the novel. Both characters' paths eventually
cross at the apex of the metaphorical V., even after numerous
adventures and clues used from stories spanning two generations. V. is
a brilliant first novel, but is by no means easily approachable. It is
certainly readable, but I was advised after reading it to read The
Crying of Lot 49 first, to get used to Pynchon's style, which seems to
be a good path to take; some chapters needed to be reread. But in the
end, ready or not, reading V. was an excellent idea.

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