V-2nd - Chapter 11: Those kids

[Bekah]

Oops -  not New Testament -   I can't think of a New Testament story where anyone is dismembered - especially not by kids.  The woman's death is compared to Christ dying -  ?  In addition to being partially dismembered,  the woman is first defrocked and then de-wigged to find a tattoo.   

From "Finding V."   
by Kenneth Kupsch
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0403/is_4_44/ai_54370329/

(page 7)
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0403/is_4_44/ai_54370329/pg_7/?tag=content;col1


V.'s metamorphosis is taken up far less subtly in the later historical episodes through the depiction of her "obsession with bodily incorporating little bits of inert matter" (488).   Actually, Stencil's father, we are told in the epilogue, had noticed this characteristic 20 years earlier: "she would never let him touch or remove" (488) a five-toothed ivory comb. Roger B. Henkle points out that a similar comb was traditionally worn by Venus (100) - information he traces through the novel's reference to Robert Graves's The White Goddess.   As for her more recent incarnation, by 1919 she has added a star sapphire to her navel, as well as a glass eye which she eagerly displays to Stencil's father before pushing off from Malta for Fiume in time to be a part of that city's brief seizure by the Italian forces led by Gabriele d'Annunzio.   In 1922 Vera Meroving, as she next calls herself, appears in South West Africa, where her sexuality takes a sadomasochistic turn as part of a group of besieged holdovers from the period of Germany's ruthless colonization of that country.    Ultimately, in her most shadowy guise of all, V. returns to Maim, where she appears during World War II as a mysterious figure known simply as the Bad Priest.   There the full extent of her obsession with replacing body parts with artificial ones is revealed when what's left of her dying body is effectively disassembled by a band of little children whose own insensitivity to suffering is of no small account.   One particularly noteworthy detail here is the tattoo of the crucifixion of Christ uncovered on the bare skull after V.'s wig is cheerfully removed (342).   Careful readers will remember that crucifixion was also the subject carved into her ivory comb, although in that case the victims were five British soldiers executed in 1883 during the successful Mahdist rebellion in Khartoum (167).   Finally, it should be noted that all this takes place in a novel that begins, not accidentally, on Christmas Eve. 

Bekah


On Dec 5, 2010, at 3:37 PM, Bekah wrote:

> On Dec 5, 2010, at 9:33 AM, kelber at mindspring.com wrote:
> 
>> The scene where the Maltese kids set upon the dying V., laugh at her and dismember her, well, it's kind of disturbing, no?  I have a mental block against anything Biblical, but the scene's clearly got some Christian overtones.  Does it relate to a specific scene in the New Testament, anyone?
> 
> 
> http://www.thebricktestament.com/judges/gang_rape_and_dismemberment/jg19_01.html
> 
> It's a rather gross story.   Comes from Judges 19: 
> http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Judges+19&version=KJV
> 
> 
> Here's that Legos site from "In the beginning":    
> http://www.thebricktestament.com/
> 
> Bekah
> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> It reminds me of two other cases:  the historical reports of the murder of Greek mathematician Hypatia.  Her heresies enraged a mob of citizens to set upon her and rip her up, even scraping the flesh from her bones with seashells.
>> 
>> The other is that scene from Tennessee William's Suddenly Last Summer ( all right, the movie version) where gay Sebastian is ripped apart and cannibalized by an angry mob of indigenous types.
>> 
>> Who do we sympathize with in these scenes?  Are we meant to think that the victims deserved what they got?  Fausto seems to harbor guilt for not rescuing V. from the mob of kids, but he doesn't seem to blame the kids either.  The message is that when we have progress, we have to expect the mobs to fight it.  Ultimately, they'll lose, so we can't be too hard on them.  Is that it?
>> 
>> Can't help but think how this is playing out in the 21st century.  The forces of globalization (faceless corporations exploiting people across the globe, draining resources, concentrating wealth and power in the hands of an unelected, uncontrollable oligarchy) versus the forces of reaction (religious fundamentalism - Christian, Jewish and Islamic, nationalism, anti-immigrant racism, with, alas, those of us who believe in strong, regulatory democratic government tacked on for the ride).
>> 
>> Laura
>