V---2nd Epilogue

[Mark Kohut]

MB: 
"I also believe that the choice of 1859 as the year Sidney Stencil
discerned some sort of disease entering the world was because he
himself was born that year (he mentions "sixty years on the go"
(543-44))"


NICE deducing....New thought to me.....YES!.....But it is because TRP
chose him to be born then?..........

when the disease started............when capitalism "took off" way beyond
small merchant, farmer, village size?.....


When, in America, it was still unified and there had not yet been a Civil War?
(I admit SS and here seems little connected to America here unlike in some 
other 
TRP books).......But america also started its railroad system building in the 
1860s
and we know how TRP feels about railroads......

1859:.....a Step-Up Function beyond simple humanity kicks in historically?   

----- Original Message ----
From: Michael Bailey <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com>
To: P-list <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Wed, March 16, 2011 5:38:36 PM
Subject: Re: V---2nd Epilogue

as Saeure Bummer remarks in GR, "When you're this high and you need
somebody to show up, they do." (or words to that effect)


so do old Stencil's reflections on the Paraclete segue into an
appearance of somebody he (and his son, and the reader) seeks.


"[the Father and the Son having had their series cancelled] What next?
What Apocalypse?
"Especially on Malta, a matriarchal island.  Would the Paraclete be
also a mother?  Comforter, true.  But what gift of communication could
ever come from a woman...
"Enough, lad, he told himself. You're in dangerous waters.  Come out, come out."

Demivolt: Don't turn around now, but it's she.  At Maijstral's table.

------
having either lacked the patience to work through page by page, or
found the energy to read the rest of the chapter,  depending on how
you want to look at it, I now know that Victoria Wren seduced Stencil
after he rescued her (or perhaps rescued the policeman she was
assaulting) from the riot that was breaking out as Godolphin pere et
fils embarked.

I now interpret the reference to his "love" and the "circle" begun in
London eighteen years past as meaning that Maijstral's affair with
Veronica Manganese and his deserted wife reflect Stencil's own earlier
affair with Victoria Wren (whom we know to be the same person by the
crucifix comb) and Stencil's
forsaken-to-the-point-of-hardly-being-mentioned (except once in the
bathtub song) wife.

This makes his intervention with Maijstral a partial atonement for his
own infidelity.

I also believe that the choice of 1859 as the year Sidney Stencil
discerned some sort of disease entering the world was because he
himself was born that year (he mentions "sixty years on the go"
(543-44))