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

[Mark Kohut]

Laura asks: 
Is V. making conscious decisions to be false or bad, or is she the hapless 
receptacle of all the excesses of the 20th century: colonialism (Cairo), 
conspiracy (Florence), genocide (Sudwest), high-tech war (Malta) - plus at least 
one more version coming up in Chapter 14?  When the children (the natural island 
children) cruelly strip her of all her prostheses, she becomes a fragile, 
pathetic human again.  The children scene is a disturbing one.  Rebellion of the 
oppressed?  Or is it some sort of Catholic parable about casting the first 
stone?

Leads me to remember that good plist conversation involving more than a few 
regulars who are quiet at the moment wherein we seemed to get to agreeing--
with examples--that the They in GR was also Us.................

I'd say V. actively makes choices against being human and is a receptacle of 
society's move to inanimateness.....

When one thinks on it, a typical NOT one and NOT the other dualism 
subverted....part of TRPs complexity

-----Original Message-----
>From: Michael Bailey <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com>
>
>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"?