V-2nd, 3

[Ian Livingston]

> Ob: Spying is alluded to among one of the impersonations. Spying is
> pervasive in Pynchon's work....and, it is emblematic of betrayal, not
> suprising and accurately.............

A minor point I omitted in my hurry yesterday morning, from page 74 (Vintage):

Max learns: "He came to the awareness reluctantly. In Baedeker land
one doesn't often run across impostors. Duplicity is against the law,
it is being a Bad Fellow."

Part of what I see happening in this chapter is Stencil finding a
subjectivity greater than his own. He creates a history and enters
into the characters of that history in order to understand, perhaps,
how things might happen, or have happened in the course of his
father's life and demise. But this is really only self-investigation,
and it is important to remember that one must be utterly honest about
one's self-investigations. As I've said before, we are participants,
not owners, and here in Baedeker land, pretending you understand
yourself when you are pretending to be someone else is, well,
duplicitous even to yourself. It is a sin, if we use the right meaning
of the word, we miss the bull's eye, the whole point.

If V. can be taken as symbol of something much greater, as plenty of
folks suggest, and if that greater something is the Mother, as plenty
agree, and if Victoria Wren in this chapter is emblematic of V., then
I think my suggestion that we look at Victoria in the overall
structure of the chapter might be helpful as a measure of whether
Stencil comes to understand his V. just a little better through this
exercise. We enter some really interesting territory hereafter, I
think.

On Sun, Jul 18, 2010 at 6:21 AM, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Michael Bailey writes:
>
> Trying to get it straight.  Honestly, I never have.  Especially the
> Stencil chapters.  I read it with great enjoyment and it awakens
> thoughts in me anyway, but if you allow me the luxury of pretending to
> care about what is actually on the pages...
>
>
> And i say the same, nonetheless, the same, the exact same
> .......I've never had them
> cohere and after Adams I might see better how they are the 'multiplicity'
> of history but that 's too genral for me.............
>
> so, I'll make one ob and ask one question and yu'all tell no lies...........
>
>
> SO, how does it apply to the impersonations?
>
> And, okay, that's two questions but they are related: is P parodying
> Stencil in his search---or sorta working out a comic version of searching
> thru history ala Adams?
>
>
>
>



-- 
"liber enim librum aperit."