V-2nd - 2: Who's your favorite Pynchonian character?

[Ian Livingston]

I can identify quite closely with most of Pynchon's characters because
each of them seems to address some aspect, not merely of myself, but
of dozens of people I know or have known over the years. Each seems to
epitomize some aspect of life in America below the median income. Wage
slaves are all always lost in a vast, alienating, and very suspicious
storm of random connections and disconnects. Even Vibe is really only
a desperate slave with money.

Benny certainly reminds me of that age in life when all I was
concerned with satisfied those urges that begin around the belt and
below. Stencil, however, seems to be among that genera of characters
that evolves most in the most ways through Pynchon's novels. He is
driven by longing. Even when he satisfactorily concludes his "quest"
after "mother," he must return to the search because his longing is
unfulfilled. If modern people can be said to quest after anything, it
is the satisfaction of the mysterious desire created by the alienation
individuals experience in mass culture. It seems to me most of
Pynchon's characters carry that stigma more effectively than most of
the characters I have met in other contemporary fiction. Benny suffers
this explicitly, of course, but for others it seems to become a sub
rosa and subversive drive.

My favorite one? Merle Rideout. Hands down. Sphere's heir and the
alchemist who seems able to accept that there is no resolution, only
the choice to "keep cool, but care" or to run off all hot-headed after
illusions.


On Tue, Jun 29, 2010 at 7:09 AM, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Laura gave us such a long questioning post and asked:
>
> Is Cyprian (a spy searching for himself?) somewhat the heir of Stencil?  We're going to get to know Stencil a lot better in this chapter and later ones.  We may not identify with him as much as with Benny, Rachel, Oedipa and Slothrop - he's an odd duck.  But if there are echoes of him as late as Cyprian, maybe he's the quintessential Pynchon character?
>
> I suggest he is the first and quintessential quester for the meaning of......whatever happened? Who or more What V. was, as it sez early. A spy in the house of history to spin an Anais Nin novel title.
>
> The books are full of other questers but,to me, not Cyprian. yes, he was a spy but he self-overcomes that in AtD with tough, unwanted experience that changes him. He means something major about how to live in TRPs vision, I'd say, beyond spying, a compromised necessity to move beyond?
>
>
>  >--- On Mon, 6/28/10, kelber at mindspring.com <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:
>>
>>> From: kelber at mindspring.com <kelber at mindspring.com>
>>> Subject: V-2nd - 2:  Who's your favorite Pynchonian character?
>>> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
>>> Date: Monday, June 28, 2010, 3:46 PM
>>> We've spent all of Chapter One
>>> getting to know Benny, schlemiel and human yo-yo.  Then
>>> he disappears from Chapter Two.  We get to know first
>>> Rachel, then Stencil instead.  Who's the
>>> protagonist?  We find out soon enough that there are
>>> dual protagonists - Benny and Stencil - although Stencil's
>>> the more compelling because he's on a quest.
>>>
>>> I like Benny.  Do you?  He's young, hedonistic
>>> and self-centered, like many or most of us were at that age,
>>> and he's trying to "find himself."  But he's not on a
>>> Quest, and, ultimately, Pynchon will outgrow him.
>>>
>>> I also like Rachel.  She's compassionate, and highly
>>> intelligent; constantly asking questions.  There's that
>>> odd moment of girl-car love when we first meet her, but that
>>> aspect of her is soon left behind.  But she's not on a
>>> quest either.
>>>
>>> Oedipa is Rachel-on-a-Quest.  Slothrop's
>>> Benny-on-a-Quest.  Of all TRP's characters, Oedipa and
>>> Slothrop are my favorites: intelligent everywoman;
>>> hedonistic, slightly goofy everyman; both trying to get to
>>> the heart of conspiracies that may affect all of us.
>>>
>>> These characters are gone from Pynchon's last four
>>> books.  Zoyd may be goofy and endearing; he may be on a
>>> mission to protect his daughter, but he's not on a
>>> quest.  Doc?  He's looking for Shasta and
>>> Wolfmann, encountering the Golden Fang in the process;
>>> there's a bit of a quest there, but it's all a little too
>>> pat.  Or maybe, along with Pynchon, we've all gotten
>>> too jaded and/or too well-informeed about everything that's
>>> connected.
>>>
>>> The trio of Reef-Yashmeen-Cyprian in ATD doesn't seem to be
>>> looking for anything in particular; they're wandering amid
>>> the chaos.
>>>
>>> Is Cyprian (a spy searching for himself?) somewhat the heir
>>> of Stencil?  We're going to get to know Stencil a lot
>>> better in this chapter and later ones.  We may not
>>> identify with him as much as with Benny, Rachel, Oedipa and
>>> Slothrop - he's an odd duck.  But if there are echoes
>>> of him as late as Cyprian, maybe he's the quintessential
>>> Pynchon character?
>>>
>>> Speak up, folks.  Favorite character?  Similar
>>> character?
>>>
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-- 
"liber enim librum aperit."