V-2nd - Conclusion - questions

[Michael Bailey]

> I'm going to have to read the epilogue more carefully.
>

so I'm probably not going to miss the chance to do a run-thru:
like Laura said, mostly plot-wise, not theme-wise - what is actually
supposed to be happening?  I expect to be surprised, if that isn't an
oxymoron...

Epilogue - 1919 Winter - probably January rather than December, right?

If H Stencil is 18 in 1919 then he hasn't had his birthday yet,
because we know he was born in 1900

"In his youth no one of those score or so other cities had ever shown
old Stencil much in the way of Romance.  But now as if making up for
lost time his mind seemed to've gone rainy as the sky."
- do we think of Romance as "romantic interludes" or as "a Romantic
feeling about one's surroundings" ?  I'm inclined to think the latter
here...

HMS Egmont - wasn't there an Egmont overture by Beethoven?
Based upon a play by Goethe.  individual stand against tyranny.
Not sure how that's germane, except it probably is...

the wake from the much bigger Egmont causes the xebec to turn in a
circle (right?) giving Stencil a panoramic view of the harbor

and mention again of the Grandmaster of Valletta, this time the actual
historical personage who was present with de Lisle Adam at the siege
of Rhodes,rather than a saturnalian stand-in as in the previous
chapter...

(ruminations about what it means to be a grandmaster, master/slave
power relations? Mehemet is also the master of the xebec.)

complex conjunction of similes, the figurehead is like a succubus to
the city's sleeping male; while Mehemet feels desire for Malta as for
a woman

a pillar of cloud over Marsamuscetto (the harbor - aka Marsamkxett)
- meant to connote the pillar of cloud over the Israelites in the desert?

Mehemet is not a jovial master: "wandered about kicking the crew"

here's a "ha": "Armistice, ha!" (509)
Stencil finds the quietude of Malta a nice contrast from the noisy
Armistice celebrations in other capitals (some of which he's probably
seen first-hand)
-- and even in Whitehall, where he's sounded the "Armistice, ha!"
(almost a "bah, humbug!") in the hearing of his superior (superiour),
one Carruthers-Pillow.

Carruthers-Pillow, one gathers, believes devoutly in the letter of treaties.
Probably one is guided here toward ruminations on the difference
between Home Office people and their pronunciamentos, and the
perceptions of field agents

Not being steeped in history to the requisite degree, the reference to
Viscount Grey rings no bells, lights no lamps as it were...

here: "He is probably best remembered for his remark at the outbreak
of the First World War: "The lamps are going out all over Europe. We
shall not see them lit again in our time". Ennobled as Viscount Grey
of Fallodon in 1916, he was Ambassador to the United States between
1919 and 1920 and Leader of the Liberal Party in the House of Lords
between 1923 and 1924. He also gained distinction as an
ornithologist."

so, the actual lamps were again being extinguished as stencil and his
boss watched - Stencil definitely being reminded of the famous quote,
C-P perhaps not.

Now for Stencil not to see a distinction between event and image???
I'm confused - wouldn't it be Carruthers-Pillow seeing no distinction
between event and image, with his blind faith
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDXu61ZXgWE and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfdHNWJ1Xhk
although maybe for feelings about historical events the best link
would be http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2xRYw3DmRY )

can i think this through?
Stencil sees the lamps being extinguished, even now after the
Armistice, and figures that the metaphor still holds true - he's a bit
of a pessimist, in other words - "Stencil had merely been dour, which
in him passed for high celebration."

a burnt-out case?

at any rate - Mungo Sheaves had put together documents detailing
unrest in Malta and singling out a man named Mizzi, who strongly
advocated Malta detaching itself from the British Empire.

Stencil feels kinship as he reads about the guy, but I guess they are
sending him out against Mizzi

then a nice paragraph on 510 about how this war to end all wars was -
obviously to old campaigners - just another war

Anyway, he's not, umm, cognito: official diplomatic postings rarely
involve "lying doggo in a waterfront tavern" or entering on a xebec.

Mehemet tells of something happening in 1324 - but we do learn that he
thinks in terms of the Muslim calendar, so that would be - hmm the
current year is 1432,
so 1432
     1324
----------
       108 and

 2011
- 108
-------
 1903 but the implication, and indeed overt idea is "He belonged to
the trade routes of the Middle Ages."

Mehemet is smoking hashish at that point.

Mehemet's cynicism regarding earnest attempts to improve life by
changing governments remind him of a "peasant with all his uptorn
roots showing, alone on the sea at nightfall, painting the side of a
sinking ship."

512 - "suppose...sometime between 1859 and 1919, the world contracted
a disease..."

1859 - Riemann Hypothesis (also: John Brown kills at Harpers Ferry /
freaking French colonize Vietnam /  scholars gain access to Codex
Sinaiticus / CS Peirce goes to work for US Geological Survey / chimes
of Big Ben ring for the 1st time / Origin of Species published)


1919 - current date


Mehemet's trope - extending the implications beyond the image, yeah ok
I get it, painting a sinking ship - the old seaman sees all these
governmental gyrations as fruitless and pointless

but consider the source: I mean, he would, wouldn't he?  He's a
somewhat vicious master of a ship and secure in his dominance, sees
himself at the top of a chain of command, kicking his underlings;
governments to him would mean more permits, labor regulations, so
forth...

Unvoiced but implicit in choosing this particular story is that his
ship offered the man refuge from the sinking ship.  So, I'd say the
master of the xebec represents a libertarian capitalist (ie right
libertarian) view of government: he'd be happy to take on the ship
painter as another crew member to kick...
and sees government and probably ngo activity as a fruitless sinking ship

Now, old Stencil, I begin to see (none of this was clear to me and I'm
probably missing a lot still -- please feel free to jump in or
proclaim my merdefulness)
- old Stencil, who in palmier days was somewhat jolly -
has 1st) empathized with Mr Mizzi
2) spent some words claiming to accept the inevitability of war
3) now is in a certain amount of harmony with the radical anti-statist
views of a somewhat vicious ship's master

but Stencil's a bit deeper than that, at least I find that here:
"Of course," said Stencil, thinking of something else, "of course we
would all prefer to die of old age."

and at the bottom of page 512 (Harper Perennial) -
"The Armageddon had swept past, the professionals who'd survived had
received no blessing, no gift of tongues. Despite all attempts to cut
its career short the tough old earth would take its own time in dying
and would die of old age."

although in negation, here is a mention of the Paraclete which is
again brought up later in the chapter...as being part of Stencil's
theory of government.

So if Carruthers-Pillow views government documents as Decalogue,
Stencil - I prematurely presume - believes in some kind of tongues of
fire

but wait, there's more: the story of Mara!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlNmAcCinlE
as the uploader to YouTube sez: simply a great song ("Mara") by
Country Joe and the Fish