V-2nd C3

[kelber at mindspring.com]

Stencil's "forcible dislocation of personality" seems a precursor to Pirate Prentice's "gift" (in GR) of acting as a "fantasist-surrogate," or channeler of other people's dreams.  In GR, this is presented as a mystical ability (and therefore co-optable by the War Office).  But in the earlier V. it's merely a writer's technique.  Stencil's quick changes are Pynchon's quick changes.  The thrill of being a writer (or, alas, for some of us, wanna-be writer) is to completely immerse oneself in another person's situation and mentality.  Young Pynchon has the fun of creating characters out of the "automata" provided by Baedeker's.  Each character (Aieul, Yusef, Maxwell/Ralph, Waldetar, Gebrail, Girgis, and Hanne)of Pynchon's/Stencil's is a working person or indigent, a mere prop for tourists. 

Stencil is trying to get a view of V. by immersing himself mentally in her world.  She barely appears in some or most of these vignettes (assuming Victoria Wren to be her earliest incarnation).  It's not important.  What is important is that Stencil's trying to "get" the mentality of a time and place that might have created the who/what of the V. he's pursuing.  In doing so, he's copying Pynchon, who's reading the flat descriptive prose of a travel guide as a starting point for creating a (lush, he hopes)fictional world.

As Mark's pointed out in a previous post, Pynchon's unsuccessful (unlike Shakespeare) in animating his minor, and even major, characters.  They remain Baedeker automata, there for our entertainment, but emotionally uninvolving.

Laura (trying to catch up)

-----Original Message-----
>From: Ian Livingston <igrlivingston at gmail.com>
Holy smokes that’s a long address!)
>
>We learn, similarly, that Herbert's is a mere pastiche of sleuthing
>and that it is more important that he is Stencil, than it is that he
>bears some superficial resemblance to Henry Adams. His use of the
>third person is neither out of a an affected self-reflexion, nor a
>pretension to royal superiority, but a "forcible dislocation of
>personality"(62), and even this is apparently meaningless. Of course,
>there are hazards to too readily dismissing any reference Pynchon
>offers. I think it is safe to say that if he refers or alludes to it,
>he likely read it, and it can likely, then, be counted as an influence
>on his work. The degree of that influence is open at all times for
>debate.