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

[Mark Kohut]

Alice writes:  
The biographical speculations seem
a waste.

One take I see, biographically....

A deep Catholic boy like TRP, who takes Final Things seriously can FEEL priestly 
for fictional purposes? 

Or be seen that way. (My earnest seriousness as a boy made some of the nuns and 
priest suggest THAT
vocation for me. Which would have made me a different kind of Bad Priest until I 
was a good ex-Priest)






----- Original Message ----
From: alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com>
To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Fri, November 19, 2010 8:08:10 PM
Subject: Re: V--2nd, Chapter 11 p.324 A room is all that is the case

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

Priests, like soldiers, as Pointsman sez, are useful (very useful to
authors). Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Hugo, need I list the Catholics that
young P went to school on, Adams, of course, was introduced to Fitz by
a priest; Pynchon read a bunch of converts from and to Catholicism,
many were priests of something or other (McLuhan is a good example).
But we've been here before and done this. Anyways, Kai is not quite
right about Pynchon's treatment of the Brahman, be they
Transcendentalists Self-Reliant or Empathic Singers of Songs in the
Leaves of Grass sprouting from the breasts of Fallen soldiers or Guru
strung out on California Zen and the Art of Me-Myself-and
Myness-Maintenance or some other profane corruption of Eastern
whatever because the priest or knight has struck a bargain with the
Devil. It's a Faustian hubris sure, but it ain't got mothin to do with
no, The West aint the Best, Go East young Woman, Go East, find the
Other..blah blah. Pynchon is always, even young P, close to Been Down
So Long, the Priest, like on SNL, is not some flying Nun or Confession
Master Bates, he's always an idea. The biographical speculations seem
a waste.


>
> 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"?
>