V2, C3

[Mark Kohut]

Ian asks:
(3)Are these “Stencilings” fair insights into the perspectives of
others or are they merely solipsistic fantasies? I ask this last
because of  its possible relevance to some ruminations on the part of
Sidney Stencil later on, and something in Herbert’s contemplation that
at “each step the sense of ‘blood’ weakened. Stencil could see a day
when he would only be tolerated. It would the be he and V. all alone,
in a world that somehow had lost sight of them both” (55).

I see this as Very Adams-inspired..as Alice observed, Adams is always
conscious of his bloodline....from President down to him, loser scribbler...
Entropic decline metaphorically. Adams sense of familial decline may lead
him to his scathing riffs on Grant, where he states that Grant and so many 
corrupt others in his administration--and he names 'em---were a kind of 
refutation of Darwin--so in the intellectual climate. 

Then, following the last two lines of the buried syllogism, Adams kept always
feeling he was all alone anew as his Education (for his modern world) kept
never happening so he was always a man of the 18th Century (his words) caught
at the end of the 19th, writing this autobio at the start of the 20th.....

So, V. too, here, must be of an earlier time, maybe the 18th century. Quod Erat 
Demonstradum.
V. before devolving. 


 


----- Original Message ----
From: Ian Livingston <igrlivingston at gmail.com>
To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Sun, July 11, 2010 3:39:51 PM
Subject: V2, C3

I won't be able to access the internet until the sun hits my panels
tomorrow mid morning Pacific Time, so I thought I'd get these out
ahead of the schedule by just a bit. Then I have to get back to my
chores.

This first is just a collection of larger questions I have about this
chapter, the next email will launch into the work.

My big questions are

(1) to echo Laura’s question, How closely are we to read the Stencil /
Henry Adams link?

(2) Regarding the structure of this chapter, is there something to the
arrangement of the sections besides the spy v. spy story, for instance
in that Victoria Wren does not appear in sections iv and v? Could this
structural order of things relate to Mark’s insights on the Rachel in
the mirror / time episode (e.g., absent subject)?

(3)Are these “Stencilings” fair insights into the perspectives of
others or are they merely solipsistic fantasies? I ask this last
because of  its possible relevance to some ruminations on the part of
Sidney Stencil later on, and something in Herbert’s contemplation that
at “each step the sense of ‘blood’ weakened. Stencil could see a day
when he would only be tolerated. It would the be he and V. all alone,
in a world that somehow had lost sight of them both” (55).

-- 
"liber enim librum aperit."