V2nd, C3

[Joseph Tracy]

On Jul 15, 2010, at 2:00 PM, Ian Livingston wrote:

> 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?
>
I  find Alice's ideas provocative and frequently insightful, but   
also regularly overstated or overstetched to the point of losing  
credibility. This also undermines any sense of authority claimed. To  
interpret P.s work only through the lens of the canon of American  
lit  just doesn't work. I want to state emphatically that I am  
convinced there is far more to Pynchon than derivation or  
commentary.  The work is unique; the writing  styles employed are a  
pastiche designed to serve the character and time period but the  
voice is always Pynchon.  The sense of humor, fully released in GR,  
is also unique. The ambition to reflect encyclopedically on huge  
portions of history with a particularly wonderful ear for the  
tellingly weird, and to probe the nature of empire, colonialism power  
and passivity is again handled in a unique way. And I find the  
narrative structures he invents to be incomparable to earlier work.   
Pynchon honors, uses, and comments on writers from a broad spectrum  
of 'low' and 'high' literary art, but to consider his work only in  
reference to any or all of those writers is absurdly inadequate.

> 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."