V-2nd - Chapter 14

[Michael Bailey]

Richard Ryan wrote:
Richard Ryan:
> ***I agree that Pynchon is not homophobic.  Pynchon is an aesthete and
> a voyeur - the affair between V. and Melanie offers him a chance to
> climb in their heads (and the heads of the other characters
> surrounding them) and watch, giggling and guffawing, as they work
> through the variations.
>

wow, that's possible.  If we impute to the storyteller the
sensibilities of Pig Bodine.
(not inconceivable)

But isn't it also possible that the "incremental repetition" of the
messing-up of a woman's mind in different ways shapes and forms and
settings thru-out the 20th century is supposed to be cumulatively
efficacious, points plotted defining a vector, if you
will...deploring; as Robin said, "of course he is being sarcastic when
he says of 60,000 killed in Sudwest" - of *course* deploring!


...the episodes of Benny, the scenes of V, each a set of points on a
vector within a plane that is Stencil's point of view...a point of
view that is, like, somewhat wrong, twisted (so, a deformed plane) but
in ways that are defined in turn by references meant to be caught and
to allow one to appreciate, respect, and to some degree, remediate or
com that twistedness...

the diction of the narrator who narrates Benny, unlike Benny and his
friends' dialogue, is about as high-flown as the narrator who narrates
Stencil, so (of course it's the same guy writing both, obviously,
obviously) to draw in another reference it's like that Escher drawing
of the right hand drawing the left and vice versa - I am just sort of
brainstorming here, this is only a working hypothesis, a temporary
framework to hold some of the facts --
but isn't it possible that the v narrative is supposed to be like a
wedge inserted along the acupuncture meridians of the New York story
and to suggest, well, something (the development of a particular
headspace, which I'm not prepared to label)

I dunno - all I'm sayin' (is have a nice day, hope it don't rain on
your parade...)
all I'm sayin' is that so many times I've come back to a Pynchon book
and gotten more out of it - most definitely including V. - that I
suspect if I keep at it, someday this will become clearer.

is it really a failure in the high seriousness department to keep
enough detail about the Rite of Spring to suggest it, but to diverge
massively enough to describe something else entirely?