V2nd - chapter 11 - more examples - Bastardized?

[alice wellintown]

I'm not suggesting that Stencil is merely a parody of Henry Adams.
That he is a parody of Adams is made explicit by the author and is
obvious enough. That he is a parody of the hard boiled detective or is
some kind of soft boiled detective is surely an interesting thesis
given the recent publication of Pynchon's parodic detective novel,
_Inherent Vice_, but you would need to provide some evidence to
support this thesis. It is certainly the case that young Pynchon has a
certain penchant for pastiche, as you noted, and of the detective
writers in particular. Though the quest narrative and the modern and
postmodern detective story (say, from Poe's early works to Pynchon's
latest, _Inherent Vice_) are related, in that, for example, both are
driven by an Aristotelian cause and effect or in the case of Pynchon's
parodies the conventional expectation of causality and the deliberate
suspension of result or completion. How does one keep an audience
interested if the link of cause and effect is broken? If completion is
never allowed? Perhaps completion is of qualities. That is, the reader
is satisfied with the cognitive or perhaps didactic speculations the
text engenders. Romantics, like Christ, speak in parables and
paradoxes. A Koan is a good example. The powerful subjunctive resists
any definite facts gathering or detective work. So, the journey or
quest, not the detective soft boiled but rather the great fall from
the wall down the rabbit's hole.

On Sun, Nov 28, 2010 at 5:46 PM, Ian Livingston <igrlivingston at gmail.com> wrote:
> Well, he is, yes, a Henry Adams stencil. I have no reservation on that
> whatsoever. His quarry is V. He uses his best methods of detection to
> search for V., beginning with his initial inquiries into  his father's
> journals. His role as detective is precursor to Oedipa's, who,
> likewise, both is and is not a detective. I can't limit Stencil to
> H.A.
>
> On Sun, Nov 28, 2010 at 10:14 AM, alice wellintown
> <alicewellintown at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Is Stencil a detective? He is said to be an adenturer. This is a
>> parodic description of Henry Adams, who reminds his readers again and
>> again, that he is not an adventurer and thus his is a story of
>> Education not Adventure. Of course, like Stencil he imposes his
>> subjective confessions on to history, or stencilizes them, even as he
>> manuevers to avoid the limited and ambiguous and unreliable first
>> person. Stencil is a cery Modern and Romantic hero; his quest is who
>> he is or one who looks for V.
>>
>> On Sun, Nov 28, 2010 at 12:22 PM, Ian Livingston
>> <igrlivingston at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Blank parody of Sam Spade. Nothing intended in the parody but a bit of
>>> a snicker. His role as detective is plain enough, the femme fatale
>>> clear enough, the vertiginous complication messy enough, but the
>>> detective is a bit of a wimp, no?
>>>
>>> On Sun, Nov 28, 2010 at 9:07 AM, alice wellintown
>>> <alicewellintown at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> Hence, too, The Maltese Falcon. I do believe we have to include
>>>>> Hammett in the discussion of Malta and things Maltese. Surely Stencil
>>>>> is a soft-boiled pastiche of Spade in some ways, yes?
>>>>
>>>> Stencil is a Soft-boiled pastiche? Sounds interesting, but I can quite
>>>> make out your meaning.
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> "liber enim librum aperit."
>>>
>>
>
>
>
> --
> "liber enim librum aperit."
>