V-2nd - Conclusion - questions

[Ian Livingston]

> "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

So I have to suggest the possibility here, too, that we can take this
as a part of young P's notions of Lutheran / Calvinist theology. The
elect who survive Armageddon have had all along all they will ever
have until they are raised at the end of times to abide in Heaven with
their God. Remembering that Armageddon is the cataclysmic
confrontation that leads to the Millenium of the Kingdom of Heaven on
Earth, and all that. The preterite were and remain disposable as set
pieces on a stage. Maybe this thought might also shade somewhat of
Benny's response to Brenda that he hasn't learned a goddam thing if we
take Benny in this reading as elect and the Stencils as preterite.

On Sun, Mar 13, 2011 at 12:10 AM, Michael Bailey
<michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 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
>



-- 
"Psyche pasa athantos." --Plato