V2nd - chapter 11 - more examples - Bastardized?

[Michael Bailey]

 Richard Fiero wrote:

> . . .
> Stencil and Profane may both be highly alienated characters and tragic like
> Oedipus, Jesus Christ, Raskolnikov and Willy Loman. Life with death as a
> certainty and no hope for renewal.
> The fog at the end of IV and the grace of AtD are forever unobtainable.
>
>

It struck me a little differently:
we all live in the fog at the end of IV...we all fly toward grace -
and never know when we will encounter it since it's as difficult to
descry at any distance at all as any other object seen thru the fog.

Stencil's and Profane's alienation stems from reasonable causes -

Stencil's burned out from the war and questions the whole
politico-diplomatic setup in the service of which he labored and his
father labored and died.  Does he want to die in that service?  No, he
decided.  It's hard to abandon a tradition, and yet I for one applaud
him.

Profane has mojo - willy-nilly, women are drawn to him.  Since he
apparently has his choice among women, he has set the bar high.
Although he's not ostentatiously intellectual, his objections to the
various possible matings that life offers him are intelligent and
quite valid in their own way.


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