V2nd - Chapter 11 - V. is the Portrait of Dorian Gray

[kelber at mindspring.com]

Sorry, backtracking here.

Fausto's confession seems to me to be about transformation.  He transforms from Fausto I, before the war, a young man contemplating the priesthood; to Fausto II, formed by the onset of war and Paola's birth; to Fausto III, who takes on the characteristics of non-humanity as a result of the encounter with the Bad Priest, which he describes later; and finally Fausto IV, not caused by any single event, but the inheritor of a physically and spiritually broken world.  So the spiritual transformation goes something like:  1. religious, 2. pragmatic, 3. alienated, 4. accepting all that is the case.

But while he's talking about his spiritual transformation, he seems to be beseeching Paola not to change.  He's seen V./the Bad Priest.  Could that happen to Paola?

Stencil, his unintended reader, has a better understanding of V.'s transformation from a naive young girl to the Bad Priest.  Fausto has a right to be terrified for Paola if V. represents the transformation of Woman from Earth Goddess to Object, and/or the transformation of the Human into the Inanimate.  I think Pynchon's more interested in the latter, but I think, in this chapter, he touches on the former.

Here's Paola, indigenous, born of the rock: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_of_Willendorf

Here's the Bad Priest: http://www.svedka.com/verify/?dest=undefined 

[and can I editorialize as a woman for a moment:  outside of the male robot in AI (who looks like Jude Law), are there any women who seriously fantasize about sex with a robot?  But female sex-robots seem to be a common male fantasy.  Is it fear of fatherhood? Or is it really that onerous to have to squeeze out a few minutes of conversation in exchange for sex?]

The Earth Goddess is the mother of the world.  The Bad Priest urges the local girls to become nuns.  The goal is to become non-human.  Why does V. have all these prostheses?  Why does Bongo-Shaftsbury have the prosthetic arm?  Is it some evil instinct?  Or because "we have the technology"?  Evan Godolphin suffers from low-tech implants.  Esther doesn't really fit in with the others - she has a small piece of gristle removed, but nothing added.

V. seems more evil than the others because her implants (the clock-eye, the belly-jewel)are ornamental, and therefore decadent.  But does Pynchon see her as decadent, or as a metaphor for the modern world?

V. is Dorian Gray's portrait.  She's the passive receptacle of the evil others do.  The others being the "They" of GR?  Or us?

Laura




-----Original Message-----
>From: David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>
>Sent: Nov 22, 2010 9:44 AM
>To: kelber at mindspring.com
>Cc: pynchon-l at waste.org
>Subject: Re: V2nd - Chapter 11 - the tone
>
>I think pretty much all of what you speak of below was Pynchon's
>intention with Paola.  The lack of abstraction in the Maltese language
>means instead that only the real, concrete, earth-bound can be
>expressed.  Later, in GR, abstractions of scientific analysis give
>rise to the Rocket, and all that it entails.  And, yes, Paola, as an
>"ideal" female, is the attractor of all males.  This is more than a
>bit patronizing, and also at odds with someone who is supposed to be
>free of abstractions (because, really, the world of the novel has
>constructed the polar-opposite female "types," both of which are
>nothing if not abstractions).
>
>In the Chinese "Book of Changes" the first of the 64 possible
>hexagrams is "Ch'ien" which entails the concept of Creative
>Force/Movement (the purely "male" abstraction).  Conversely, the
>second hexagram is "K'un," meaning (among many other aspects) the
>Receptive.  This "receptive" is a part of Paola's mythological
>identity.
>
>David Morris
>
>On Sun, Nov 21, 2010 at 6:47 PM,  <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:
>>
>> Fausto talks about the Maltese language, and its inability to convey abstract ideas.  We can extrapolate that Fausto believes the true Maltese (Maltan?) is a whole person, continuous, un-fragmented.  The fragmentation results when foreign influences, and modernity are introduced, whether in the form of language, poetry, or bombs (which cause physical fragmentation too).
>>
>> What does Fausto want for Paola? (p. 346):  "May you be only Paola, one girl: a single given heart, a whole mind at peace."
>>
>> Is he too late to save her?  There's something about Paola that attracts any and all men (Pappy Hod, Pig Bodine, Profane, Rooney Winsome, McLintic Sphere, even Stencil).  Is it because they sense the single heart, the whole mind?  Outwardly, she certainly seems fragmented.  1. Child of the Maltese rock, 2.  Balloon-girl, playing at being an Italian dirigible, no longer wholly innocent or natural, 3.  Paola Hod, married to some skanky old Navy guy as a ticket to America, 4.Paola the barmaid, 5. Paola, the newest inductee into The Whole Sick Crew, 6. Paola, playing at being a prostitute named Ruby.  Why?
>>
>> Still, there seems to be some sort of moral core to her that keeps her a continuous character.  She's as pensive and serious as her father (who likewise doesn't come across as fragmented).  Can native-born, indigenous types escape the fragmentation of modernity by virtue of some innate spirituality?  It's a patronizing assumption, but is that what P.'s driving at here?