On Valleta in Malta and a Co-Cathedral?!?..(remember Co-consciousness in ATD)

[Mark Kohut]

FROM an Irish Times article:

Or perhaps the allure of Valletta has something to do with the mysterious letter V. Back in the 1960s, reclusive American author Thomas Pynchon called his often-inaccessible debut novel V., and set several chapters in Valletta, where he spent long sojourns plotting the exploits of his ex-navy hero, Benny Profane.

One way or another, Valletta has had an extraordinary magnetism for writers. Lord Byron narrowly escaped a duel over a certain married lady when he visited in 1809. In 1831, Sir Walter Scott described it as “this splendid town quite like a dream”. Anthony Burgess moved there in 1968 and opens his masterful novel, Earthly Powers , there.

And it’s not just writers. Benjamin Disraeli visited in 1830 and described it as “a city of palaces, built by gentlemen for gentlemen”.

you’ll want to visit St John’s Co-Cathedral, and the
Museum of Archaeology..... It houses one of the most important finds, the Venus of Malta, the figure of a tiny fertility goddess.

National War Museum..... The people of Malta were awarded the George Cross in 1942 for their extraordinary endurance in the face of German and Italian bombing during the second World War. Amongst the exhibits are many of the awards received by Maltese servicemen and civilians.


 Munich by Steven Spielberg on DVD and have a look at the backdrop – a lot of it is Valletta. There’s a good flavour too in Earthly Powers by Anthony Burgess and V. by Thomas Pynchon.