V--2nd, Chapter 11 p.324 A room is all that is the case

[Michael Bailey]

On Thu, Nov 18, 2010 at 1:23 PM, rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com> wrote:
> I do like those religious church paintings
>

a-and the smell, and the kneeling benches, and the stained glass...

old Fausto was considering being a priest, and I'm inclined to make
much of that.

One wonders if TRP ever felt a possible vocation?  Dan Aykroyd - a
comic virtuoso in a different field - started seminary. Of course, so
did Stalin...my plans for an imaginary alternate world series include
having him finish and become a priest...

but I think the world is richer for Pynchon and Aykroyd having chosen
more worldly callings.  Not that it's really my call, nor is there any
record anywhere of TRP aspiring to the priesthood.

I think, though I lack the expertise to argue this well, that the
abortion party is set up as an example of a difficult moral challenge
being met by the parties involved, not to the author's complete
satisfaction, and perhaps (oh, I am not saying this well at all) a
feeling-of-the-need for some institution like the Church which would
offer some coherent alternative to this ad hoc solution...but some
dissatisfaction with the RC faith as practiced has caused this not to
be pursued as an active presence manifested other than subtly in V.

 conspicuous in its (relative) absence, like relativity in AtD...

anyway, moving on to something I can argue better:
Fausto's vocation, or Fausto I's, and Fausto I himself, seems to have
been interrupted by falling in love (not a bad thing...) but hasn't
been forgotten:
"We will return to this matter of vocation." (p 344)

Meanwhile, within this written confession, Elena makes a confession to
the Bad Priest (p 344-5) who at this moment we do not know to be V.

And as V. has taken the confession of Godolphin before, now this
incarnation or avatar of V. (and let's see, are there 4 V.'s - V in
Egypt, in Florence, in Sudwest and in Malta - to match the 4 Faustos?
I honestly do not know, you may remember I was talking about 3 Faustos
a couple days ago...anyway, is this a mirroring effect?) - takes
Elena's confession

Honestly, I really am not real approving of V. ...

she becomes a bad person because that seems like the only way to have
an interesting life?

her advice is a sort of parody of the Vocation that keeps Fausto from
quickly and conclusively committing to Elena, tit for tat, sauce for
the goose type of thing

She's calling Elena away from love in the name of Jesus, the same way
that the prospect of priesthod calls Fausto away!  She's invoking a
feeling of sin and shame that "Only Christ was mighty enough, loving
enough, forgiving enough [to ameliorate and cure]" (345)

and what of Stencil in all this: "a mysterious being named Stencil"?