V2nd, C3

[Ian Livingston]

With section III of chapter 3, we get some interesting stuff going on.
The plot thickens, as they say. Stencil is now posed as Maxwell
Rowley-Bugge, an expat pedophile at large in Alexandria, preying on
English wealth, naivetee, and sympathy for his daily bread. Locking on
to the Mildred, Goodfellow, Porpentine, and Victoria quartet, he
quickly finds himself out of his depth.

P. engages in some dramatic pluralism (any Wm. James enthusiasts
willing to pitch in here?) at the bottom of page 71 (Vintage). After
his attempts at assessment of his quarry, he finds himself imagining a
plethora of perspectives drawn into the group as if it contained some
sort of social chaotic attractor (
http://www.exploratorium.edu/complexity/CompLexicon/strange.html ).
Granted, chaos theory was only just emerging in its earliest
theoretical stages at the time P. wrote V., but the resonance is
interesting. Sort of a plate of shrimp phenomenon, maybe, as per Repo
Man (1984). The point is is each is represented as an individual in
the crowd and the crowd seems to have an identity of its own.

He goes on into some more of the historical metafiction thing with Max
imagining VW's bio, and we read it as if it were Victoria herself
recollecting her past. This doubly-embedded imaginary history is
almost unnerving. Kind of like contemporary news rewriting history to
match the needs editors think individuals should feel within society.
Kind of Bernaisean.

And in walks Harmakhis (Thoth), the falcon-headed god of ancient Egypt
who endowed the Egyptians with science, writing, and beer. Well, the
first two directly, the latter by extension. I don't guess there is
much new to say HB-G's name. Very cute. According to Marcus Smith in
V. and the Maltese Falcon: A Connection? (PN vol. 2), there are some
very strong correspondences between V. and the Dashiell Hammett novel.
Well, I haven't read Hammett, but it seems quite evident the
resonances are there as richly as those with Adams (which I am
reading, have not yet read).

The section ends with Max contemplating "pools of light" in the
street, similarly, perhaps, to Aieul's contemplation of raindrops at
the end of section I. Light plays important roles in the rest of
Pynchon's opus, and especially in M&D. Any comments on the finite
number of pools of light in the street of an expatriated pedophile's
life?



-- 
"liber enim librum aperit."