V-2nd C3

[Joseph Tracy]

Well I don't know how much time I can give to this because of my  
summer gig teaching a bit about glass art, but the commentary  from  
Ian and Mark and Laura resonates with my own response to the chapter.  
I really agree with Laura that the 'main' characters are emotionally  
uninvolving. I don't care about any of the English people. However  
the  Egyptians through whom we see much of the action are much more  
engaging. And their dispossession reminds me of my own dispossession  
from a game and game-players to whom  neither I nor anyone I truly  
respect and identify cannot seem to  make ourselves real. To the  
powerful of this age all those of genuine insight are like ghosts,  
like dark skinned tribals, like dreamers or children. And because of  
the Egyptians and barmaids the world they inhabit acquires a  
Shakespearean depth the players who strut upon the stage cannot  
achieve. The stage outshines the 'action'.

I think this effect, though not fully refined, is deliberate.

I would wager serious money that Pynchon knew about Kundalini Yoga.   
To posess V Wren is to possess the architecture of the soul of  
England. The mechanics of that desire as devoid of soul as a ticking  
clock.

On Jul 14, 2010, at 5:42 PM, kelber at mindspring.com wrote:

> 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.