V2nd, C3

[Mark Kohut]

Scholar Alice (citing another scholar unnecessarily) is always saying:

"P's ideas are so profoundly influenced by Adams"...................

Alice has never been truer...................................

If you haven't read The Education, you are missing something and
it has to be THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT BOOK in "getting', feeling P...

I will throw out more resonances.............later.........big list maybe...

but, just a very minor one.......P throws around a negative meaning to "mass' in 

AtD..and maybe GR.............I figiured it played on mass in physics and 
mass man,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Well, it is a key Adams word for the mass of American mankind....



----- Original Message ----
From: alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com>
To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Thu, July 15, 2010 8:48:00 PM
Subject: Re: V2nd, C3

Yes, a personification. Is Stencil a parody of Adams? This is one
major question that critics have raised and Grant does a fine job of
presenting the major differences in the critical industry's asnwers to
this question. When I say, P is Adams, I'm saying that P's ideas (at
least in V.) are so profoundly influenced by Adams's ideas, are so in
agreement with them,  that young P, the P of V., is not
distinguishable from Adams. This does not preculde the parodic
treatment of Henry Adams or his texts. The irony here is that P's
parody is also, in the style of Adams, self-mocking. Anxiety and
influence? Sure. And we can trace the pattern and development Bloom
outlines as Adams continues to educate and P continues to go to school
on Adams even in AGTD.

Whose dad so to speak?

On Thu, Jul 15, 2010 at 4:00 PM, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Stencil is a child of the 20th century---born about the time Adams wrote The
> Education.
>
>
> I would say reflexiively that Stencil is P's personification of some of Adams'
> thoughts on how
> history is what it is.....(more on this later). He ain't Adams; Adams is his
> dad, so to speak.
>
>
> One other resonance to Stencil's name, I'd add: one reason Adams' book has
> lasted is that
> he did pin down real "patterns" in American history--in this book,
> self-judgingly NOT in his 12-volume
> history.....



>
> Grant's admin   ===  some commentators compared Dyuba's admin to Grant's....
>
> I had heard of the financial crisis of 1893...knew nothin bout
> it..............Adams gives us
> something---how it almost bankrupted his family, for one----then adds that
> 'saving' the system
> [bailout, anyone?] meant the rats were saved with the mice [little guys].
>
> And more.
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Ian Livingston <igrlivingston at gmail.com>
> To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Sent: Thu, July 15, 2010 2:00:25 PM
> Subject: V2nd, C3
>
> If we are to read Stencil by Alice's reductionist take as merely a
> 20th century Adams, where do we go with him with him from here? What
> is the educational value of these exercises in which Stencil engages,
> if they are only allusions to earlier American lit? Is there anything
> more to any of this? Or is it just a game of allusions?
>
> Yusef the factotum:
>
>   1.    {dag}a. In L. phrases: Dominus factotum, used for ‘one who
> controls everything’, a ruler with uncontrolled power; Johannes
> factotum, a Jack of all trades, a would-be universal genius. Also fig.
>   {dag}b. One who meddles with everything, a busybody.    c. In mod.
> sense: A man of all-work; also, a servant who has the entire
> management of his master's affairs. (OED).
>
> Is Yusef a Joseph? Scorned by his brothers, sold into slavery in
> Egypt, where he interprets Pharoah's dreams, rising thus to a status
> of factotum in the Empire? No? Is he just another yibbler, fantasizing
> within the fantasy a violent overthrow that can never happen, or never
> cease?
>
> This is the second mention of Victoria Wren, and her first appearance
> "in the flesh," which is enough to captivate Yusef. She is a "balloon
> girl," "lighter than the rest of her world," who has enough going on
> to use basic phrases in the local language. She perches herself at the
> apex of an isoceles triangle with Goodfellow, Porpentine, Mildred & co
> (forming a rather complex V).
>
> The spy v. spy narrative develops with Count Khevenmhuller-Metsch
> chatting up his Russian counterpart M. de Villiers. The political
> complexities of the French-Russian relationship are thus a part of the
> complexities of a triangle with Austria as a third partner. Lepsius
> appears in his 'blue-tinted spectacles and a false nose." His
> appearance, or the manner thereof precipitates Porpentine's acrobatic
> tumble. His only words are to do with V.W.'s good looks.
>
> Now, if Yusef is merely Stencil who is merely Adams, what does this
> imagining do to increase his education?
> Is he wiser about V. W.? or the social morass of middle-eastern
> political intrigue?
> Is there any possibility that young Thomas Pynchon is doing more than
> aping the past? Can he be developing a tableau of individuals in
> society?
>
>
> --
> "liber enim librum aperit."
>
>
>
>
>