just one more from that (Alberto) V05 guy...

[Michael Bailey]

...from which Im tempted to read a paraphrase of Dr Johnson, "If
you're tired of Pynchon, you're tired of life"
then again, there are days when the British Museum has lost it's
charm...but that's when you meet the woman wearing Scarlet Begonias in
Grosvenor Square...interestingly his posts appear around the time that
somebody (Dr Krafft?) mentioned that a person claiming to be Thomas
Pynchon had subscribed through an anonymous remailer (remember
anon.penet.fi before the Scientologists took them to court?)

From: <V055QRSH@[omitted]>
Date: Tue, 17 Jan 1995 13:13:44 -0500 (EST)
Subject: a meeting below the surface of chapter fiVe in V.
To: pynchon-l@[omitted]

       In which the fraction
        one over (A plus B
          plus D plus E
          plus F...etc)
           is equal to
                V.

This alligator was pinto: pale white, seaweed black.  It moved
fast but clumsy.  It could have been lazy, or old or stupid.
Profane thought maybe it was tired of living.

It is one of the most actionless chapter-beginning paragraphs in the novel, but
be that as it may, there is more here than meets the eye.  More - as it were -
than just black and white.
     If Benny Profane thought the alligator was tired of living, and if Thomas
Pynchon thought it necessary that the narrator be surreptitious in uncovering
Benny Profane's thoughts concerning the alligator in order to show that it's
Benny Profane who's actually the one tired of living, then anyone reading the
above excerpt, who cynically comes to the conclusion that it's in fact Thomas
Pynchon who's really tired of living, must - in being consistent - be tired of
living too.  Does this mean that if the alligator were NOT tired of living,
and if he were neither lazy, nor old nor stupid, and if this wise reptile were
still around today (I understand they did survive the dinosaur's extinction),
and if I were to come across him all wounded in the sewers, and if I were to
tell him all this junk, and if he were to fathom it all, and if he were able
to talk (a godawful lot of 'if's is an understatement), then does this mean
that he'd see an error in my logic, would refuse to tell me what he believes,
namely, 'Far be it from me to say, buddy, but I think you're just tired of
dying,' and would then just leave me standing there?  I would insist he be
more meaningful in his methodology of leave.  Suffice it to say, he'd have to
face me, which means he'd have to back away, therefore dropping his fast-but-
clumsy facade as some kind of collateral for my loaning him what I always
believed to be a one-way ticket to a final destination.  Yes, he would leave
me standing there seemingly on the same surface below which he'd be sinking,
would leave me standing there trying to put together a contingency plan,
standing there come-what-may in the darkness, with the flashlight having gone
out abruptly, my last vision of his eyes and nostrils, white and black, atop
the no ripple plane.
     Sure would be a godawful pinch I'd be in - don't you think?
     I mean - hypothetically speaking of course.

                          looking for more sewers to crawl into,
                          or at least ones that avoid the earth's center,
                          yes, ones that join beneath the crust,
                          Rick/West



-- 
 - "Be groovy or B movie" - the old 24fps signoff