V-2-ch3

[John Bailey]

I agree that V Wren is a sad figure. That's actually the key to why I
find this novel so haunting.

V.'s whole journey is that of someone attempting to turn themselves
into an object.

But it's only really revealed through someone with an obsessive
commitment to 'objectivity' that sees him do pretty much the same
thing to her. Stencil impersonates others but if he's an allusion to
Henry Adams then it's a gently parodic one - his objective historicism
is really quite fanciful and takes creative liberties, just as Adams'
autobiography is really very poetic and fabulist at times.

So we have a double movement in the novel - people who reduce others
to objects, and people who internalise that process and seek to become
objects themselves. And, I guess, Benny, bewildered by it all.

Anyway, that's how I've always read it. V. isn't a villain at all.

On Fri, Jul 23, 2010 at 1:03 PM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
> Victoria Wren
>
>   Christopher Wren:  architect   who rebuilt London after great fire and
> scientist/founder of the Royal Society
>     Queen Victoria: a pinnacle of British imperial power and the monarch of
> the time considered in Stencil's father's story.
>
> V W is visiting Egypt at a critical time of its subjugation. The lust for
> her as  an object of murderous desire and sexual fantasy  is a lust to
> possess and reshape the architecture of power represented in her name.
> Historically there was a Shaftsbury who worked to bring down Christopher
> Wren and assume his role.
>
> V. Wren is a sad figure, a girl barely past puberty surrounded by old men
> who seem to be the only ones with access to her person. Her situation is
> reminiscent  of the more universal issue of who is really allowed access to
> leadership. The empire encourages the boldest and most sordid lust as proof
> of manly leadership.. Piety is fine for a figurehead, but humane ideals and
> a true love for those actual people who could use some help must be laid
> down.
>
> I think part of what P is getting at is the falseness of the image of
> protection , piety, and benign sovereignty projected by Victorian England.
> Stencil's investigation reveals in mircrocosm something  more rapine.
>
> Well actually I don't see where any of this can be attributed to Stencil.
> Did he interview all these Egyptians? How? In my reading Stencil's research
> is just a device to allow us to see what the author will show us in greater
> detail than we could plausibly  expect from actual research.
>
>
>