V-2nd - Chapter 13 - She was only there

[kelber at mindspring.com]

Stencil's terrified of V for the same reason Benny was terrified when he saw Rachel fondling her car.  Not a cause, but a symptom.  Of what? A specifically 20th-century malaise, where the organic is melding, or being fully replaced with the inorganic.  For Benny, that means being replaced as a sex object?  That's a big part of his terror.  He's no good in terms of emotional commitment, but if he's not even good for a sex object, then what's his relationship with anyone?  Rachel dismisses his fear - it might just as well have been a parakeet as a car that she dallied with. She (and any woman) might find being liberated from the organic (all that bleeding) a positive, rather than a cause for terror. Becoming a brain encased in an inorganic object?  That could work.

Stencil's kind of a sexless being, so the source of his terror is different than Benny's.  He's afraid of the entire century.  V. hasn't caused anything - wars, industrialization, mechanized genocide - but she's there, only there, as kind of a marker or receipt: yes, Stencil, this is really what you think it is.

COL49 is about the '60s, IV and Vineland about the fall of the '60s - that's why they're smaller.  V, GR and ATD tackle the whole 20th century (M&D goes to the roots of the themes that burst out later in the 20th century).  I know a lot of people on the list dislike or even loathe V. (Robin?)  Yes, it's crude and sophomoric at times, but it's the blueprint for the later two encyclopedic books.  Mondaugen's story and Fausto's story and Melanie's story, and, ultimately, V.'s story all add up to something greater than the whole.

Laura
(about to embark on a trip that will keep me away from my computer.  Back next week).