V-2nd - Chapter 11: Those kids

[Joseph Tracy]

I think more of the origins of Malta where the last remaining temples of a matriarchal spirituality and perhaps the earliest European architecture survive. Not only the earth mother but her cyborgian future torn apart by  children who have known only war. The paradigm that made her devours her.
On Dec 5, 2010, at 7:19 PM, Mark Kohut wrote:

> I have read the scene again and am reminded I thought of 
> "Lord of the Flies" to some extent....kids going evil with some glee...
> or High Wind in Jamaica or the story in "Mad Dog" Russell's autobiography
> when he and his wife were running a kind of free school----and he learned of
> one kid putting a pin into another's soup..........................
> 
> the Crucifixion is actually alluded to: "suffering Christ foreshortened
> on the bare skull".......p343
> 
> And, as Catholicism pervades Malta and this book it is moving that
> P seems to give her a 'good death' in theology; "saying she actually feared 
> losing
> Him" more than she feared dying..which is what we Catholics were always told
> about proper repentance...........................
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
> To: kelber at mindspring.com
> Cc: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Sent: Sun, December 5, 2010 12:44:10 PM
> Subject: Re: V-2nd - Chapter 11: Those kids
> 
> laura writes:
> 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?
> 
> 
> Don't know those other wonderful associative allusions you bring, so I only 
> thought of 
> 
> Shirley Jackson's The Lottery.---that classic 1948 New Yorker story that 
> resulted in the most subscription cancellations
> to that date, I think..................
> 
> With its roots in a community's "need" to scapegoat, as (some) anthropologist's 
> have argued ?  
> 
> Leading again to your, Laura's, question about how much victim, how much 
> enactor, of bad shit is V.?  
> 
> 
>