V-2nd - 2: Stencil

[Mark Kohut]

Laura (third person):

So has Young Pynchon based Young Stencil solely on Adams?  He's still very much 
at the borrowing stage in V. - borrowing from his own early work, from 
Baedeker's, and from Adams.  Did Young Pynchon think:  Adams was out of place in 
his times - what if I create an Adams prototype who's out of place in these 
times (1950s)?  What, in the way of hilarity or drama or tragedy, would ensue?  
His "idea for a novel" being:  Henry Adams in post-war America?  Could V. be 
described as such?

Even as I read Adams, I am not, mappingly, reminded too much of Stencil. 
Yet.............this may be one of the most fruitful ways to see Stencil in V..

Stencil's is a quest in V.......in Adams he starts knowing the failed end of his 
lifelong quest so no 

'plot' there really.............Adams is always saying he is 'of the 18th 
Century' caught unable to cope in the 19th-20th..............so.more literally 
it is
as if P said......where in the past am I from?....AND I am all of us, yes?