Reading 1001 discussion

Review thread: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Questions from Reading Group Guides

1. To what extent can V. be read as "an analysis" of the decadence of the 1950s and, by extension, of the decadence of all of twentieth-century western culture?

2. In what ways is Benny Profane a "schlemihl" and a passive victim of circumstances? What are the causes and consequences of his repeated, frequently self-professed victimization? As a "human yo-yo," how is he the plaything of his culture and of history?

3. What are the nature and purpose of Herbert Stencil's quest? What does Pynchon mean when he writes that "Stencil was in time to be the century's child"? How does Stencil's search for V. reveal the decadence of European colonialism and of twentieth-century western culture?

4. Who are the various women who bear the initial "V"? What do these women represent? In addition to these women, what other persons, objects, places, and concepts are associated with the letter? How does the letter "V," as the novel's title and central symbol, effectively focus all of the primary motifs in the novel?

5. How does Pynchon illustrate the concept of entropy--the deterioration of all systems to a state of absolute inertness in which all creative energies have been dispersed? What characters and situations are most pointedlyassociated with entropy? What "rescues" from decay and deterioration dovarious characters put forward, and with what results?

6. What are the layouts and goals of the novel's various labyrinths ormazes, of either space or time? What do Profane, Stencil, and othercharacters discover about themselves and about history as they navigatetheir labyrinths?

7. What do Chiclitz, Schoenmaker, Winsome, and Eigenvalue represent?How are they related to the British Foreign Office men, Nazi officers, andother professionals who figure in Stencil's quest?

8. In what ways--and to what degree--do Profane, Stencil, and others attempt to create order out of disorder? Is any one character's approach in this regard more successful than those of the others?

9. Herbert Stencil's father says, "Suppose, sometime between 1859 and 1919, the world contracted a disease which no one ever took the trouble to diagnose because the symptoms were too subtle--blending in with the events of history, no different one by one but altogether--fatal." How would you describe that disease? How may V. be read as Pynchon's diagnosis of it?

10. Rachel thinks of the people in Dr. Schoenmaker's waiting room as only one group of "a transient population of the imperfect, the dissatisfied." In what ways do you think Rachel's perception describes all the characters in the novel?

I'm excited to start this later this month: This will be my last Quarterly! If I'm up to it next year I may stick around to host one though :)

For anyone looking to source this one for free, the audiobook has been uploaded to youtube in a couple parts.

Maybe I'm overly influenced by the world of conspiracy theory that we currently live in, but I saw everyone as working very hard to find narrative (3, 8) - the purpose of the quest) in the events that were past or current. All that is EXCEPT Profane, who has absolutely NO attachments by the end - and he works very hard to shed them - to work, to women. That makes Profane (no religion, base) and Stencil (tracing, a cutout) the foil and counterfoil but neither is really hero or anti hero given how terribly everyone behaves. I don't think Benny is a victim (2) - he is actively resisting the narrative formation that is so intrinsic to human nature.

4 - V shows how random are the things we shove together to make a whole, to tell a story. The initial is everywhere over the landscape and women's names and it means nothing except to the obsessional mind. This is maybe the disease (9) that has infected everyone, seeing shadows - turning florence and south africa and the world into riots or worse war zones because of people's ideas of each other based on shadows and an attempt to create narrative.