V-2nd - Chap 8 / I have really never read this book this closely before

[kelber at mindspring.com]

Good analysis, MB.  You've succeeded in convincing me that there's more to Fina's rape than simple snarky frat-boy-ism.  Does Benny, in some way, represent us, the Americans who enjoyed the post-war prosperity and turned away in horror from what they didn't want to see?  This would explain Benny's attraction to and revulsion for the inanimate - the classic guilty consumer.  Stencil, then, is someone who's willing to stare down history and accept whatever grim lessons and metaphors it has to offer.

Laura

-----Original Message-----
>From: Michael Bailey <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com>
>
>Can I recap them in 2 paragraphs?
>
>Like, since Benny and Stencil (hehe, remember the cartoon Beany and
>Cecil?) - are both considered as individuals rather than strictly as
>citizens ("just for a moment, you aren't what the Caesars say you
>are"), with concerns that overshadow outside events, therefore they
>see the world thru a glass darkly...
>
>so that such shadows as a) the overthrow of Arbenz and how it gave the
>lie to the benevolent intentions of the US b) the petroleum-inspired
>supplantation of Mossadegh in favor of the Shah and what it did to the
>soul of America and the bodies of countless Iranians and c) the
>purblind confusion of Eisenhower envisioning Lumumba as a Communist
>requiring assassination --- these events appear transformed in Benny
>and Stencil's experience as a) the gang-rape of Fina and what his
>slinking away meant about the state of Benny's soul, b) the incessant
>plotting necessary to establish Baedeker supreme in the land Muhammad
>Ali had such ambitious plans for and what it did to the British soul
>as epitomized in V. and c) the actions against the Herero whose
>outlines were ordered by the faraway German emperor and army-dudes
>thinking themselves somehow justified in giving such commands, having
>lost any compassion in their gnat-brained mental picture of the
>Situation  (like the tiny map Cyprian gets at some point in AtD), but
>the details of which were carried out more than faithfully and
>embellished with extra cruelty by the local satraps.
>
>>
>> The vast list of poorly-realized, often redundant characters (wouldn't two or one Traverse brother have worked just as well?)
>
>omigosh, no!  Which one could we give up?!
>
>
>
>
>-- 
>- Too many libraries?  That's an oxymoron or something, isn't it?