V-2nd - 7: Victoria Wren, late of Lardwick-in-the-Fen

[Robin Landseadel]

My big question -- perhaps a fruitful direction of investigation in  
our re-reading of V. -- what mirror images of this/these woman/women  
can we find in Against the Day?

On Sep 16, 2010, at 3:01 PM, kelber at mindspring.com wrote:

> OK, we meet Victoria Wren again, wiser after her affair with  
> Goodfellow.  Here's something I hadn't noticed in Chapter 3 during  
> the first go-round:
>
> p. 63 (Harper Perennial):  "The peer's [Alistair Wren's] wife -  
> Victoria - was meanwhile being blackmailed by Bongo-Shaftsbury, who  
> knew of her own secret anarchist sympathies."
>
> A few sentences later:
>
> "Bongo-Shaftsbury's avenue of approach would be through the  
> glamorous actress, Victoria, Wren's mistress, posing as his wife to  
> satisfy the English fetish of respectability."
>
> Later, we meet Wren's naive 18-year-old daughter Victoria, who has  
> the fling with Goodfellow and resurfaces in Chapter 7.
>
> Are these three different women?  Two?  One?  What's Pynchon doing  
> here?  Suggesting that these Victoria's aren't human, but some sort  
> of robot that can be issued as needed?  Or one very devious spy  
> playing wife, glamorous actress/mistress/, and naive daughter?
>
> Thoughts, anyone?
>
> Laura