V-2nd - Chapter 16 - Events Seem To Be Ordered Into An Ominous Logic

[Mark Kohut]

out of the title (and stencil's freaking out) comes the quest of Oedipa next 
book....


----- Original Message ----
From: "kelber at mindspring.com" <kelber at mindspring.com>
To: pynchon-l at waste.org
Sent: Tue, March 1, 2011 4:41:17 PM
Subject: V-2nd - Chapter 16 - Events Seem To Be Ordered Into An Ominous Logic

Really sorry!  I've completely fizzled in my hosting for this final chapter.  
I've been preoccupied with a lot of personal stuff - much of it good.

Some thoughts, though, about the phrase.

Stencil's repetition of it, stressing various words, is a dry run for GR's 
Kenosha Kid sequence.

Why is Stencil so freaked by hearing Father Fairing's name in a second, but 
related context?  It's a very 20th century reaction.

>From my admittedly non-comprehensive knowledge of 19th century lit, it seems 
that coincidence is not only tolerated, but expected.  Jane Eyre happens to be 
taken in my some nice people who happen to be her cousins; The man who molested 
Raskolnikov's sister happens to be staying next door to the prostitute Sonya and 
happens to hear Raskolnikov's confession; etc. etc.

Coincidence is OK in the 19th century, because there's a benevolent God pulling 
the strings.  In the 20th century, there's no God, so coincidence means [well, 
to readers and movie-goers it means a stupid, contrived plot] to Stencil that 
there's an Ominous Logic controlled by whom? The British Foreign Office?  V. 
herself?  Some weird force of history that coughs up both coincidence and V?

In GR, this dread of formerly benevolent coincidence is personified as Them.  
The military-industrial complex has taken over for God; death from above comes 
not from God, but from The Bomb.  All of that great stuff is born in Stencil's 
nightmares.

Laura