V2nd - Chapter 11 - the tone

[Michael Bailey]

I suppose you could do word counts and grammar analyses, but
unscientifically the tone seems to be quite different from Chapter 9.
Of course, all the Wayback Machine V-Quest chapters are more loftily
written than the Nueva York chapters - wouldn't you say?

And of course, the first person, which I think Laura mentioned as the
only sustained example of this mode in Mr Pynchon's work, sets it
apart.

But it has a different *feel* than other chapters.  It's actually as
confusing, in its own way, as Stencil's quick-changes earlier on.  But
hmm, if Stencil's peregrinations thru caste and creed are, like,
blindingly kaleidoscopic the first time thru (but still enjoyable to
read) - and if our friend Kurt M's experiences in the Sudwest are
dreamlike, or verge into dream, or nightmare really - then Chapter 11
is, what approximately?

If a thesis of V. might be that hey, what we need here and now is a
good sense of history (a-and what the heck have the times been doing
to people and how did we get here) - then perhaps we are zeroing in
ever closer on how people felt, and what one (very articulate and
conscience-stricken) person has to say, to his own flesh-and-blood
somewhat estranged daughter about how a time was, which is now
receding into history, when it was current events?

 without examples, what good is such a notion?

a) "the humors we do go in and out of" - this gratuitous "do" appears
at least once more in V., and also early in CoL49 (I think in a
description of the ocean)
Just adding that syllable makes it a little sing-songy, maybe like a
remnant of priestly diction?  Or at least, trying to sound like a wise
old bird of some kind (maybe an owl...)

b) and what of the thesis: It takes no more than a desk and writing
supplies to turn any room into a confessional?
Despite the fact that I'm inclined to agree with him, still when he
says, "To occupy it, and find a metaphor there for memory, is our own
fault," there's this moment of, like, "you got a mouse in your
pocket", or maybe, "you and what army", or "what you mean, 'our',
white man?"
But, like I said, I'm inclined to agree with him (ever sit down to try
and write some snappy speculative fiction with a salacious subplot or
two, and find your words accusing you and chronicling your own
shortcomings?) --- and I think
that this assumption of commonality springs from the ur-impulse that
at one point impelled him to religion, and then to subsume himself
into physical labour, and now to reach out to his daughter.

What is he confessing?  I guess he's bothered about how he acted or something?

Maybe he's just doing this to tug at her heartstrings - not that
there's anything wrong with that.

But everything he tells does seem to lead up to the big V. so maybe
he's looking to her for answers or absolution, or just "halving the
pain by sharing it"

It may be that the children's piecemeal dissasembly of V. simply
continues her tradition of tearing things apart - visiting upon her
the same Hobbesian unregulated appropriation that colonialism (which
V. supported and believed in) inflicted upon its victims.  And Fausto,
in a position to save her at one point, simply can't decide to do so
in time...although he apparently lives to regret it.  His actions then
do seem to be the most emotionally charged moment in the chapter, but
he imparts much more to Paola in the course of getting there.  Mostly
trying to lay out the reasons exactly WHY he should be dissatisfied
with himself, the attempts at life-affirming outlooks that he's
abandoned because they don't quite fit, so he's left with just the
bare desire to affirm life ("because I do - only do" as Dnubietna
wrote...)

But that's skipping 'way ahead!  All we know at this point is that
Paola, having received this document at a point where her marriage to
Pappy Hod is defunct, and her efforts to find a way in the New World
have been so unsuccessful as to lead her to seek succor from Benny
Profane, is moved to consider "going back home".  Perhaps even a
postcard would've been enough, but the old man can turn a phrase,
can't he?

need more examples...
-- 
"Such regulations may, no doubt, be considered as in some respects a
violation of natural liberty. But those exertions of the natural
liberty of a few individuals, which might endanger the security of the
whole society, are, and ought to be, restrained by the laws of all
governments, of the most free as well as of the most despotical." -
Adam Smith