On Finishing V.

I could say that Thomas Pynchon’s V. is about two men—Benny Profane and Herbert Stencil. I could say that V. is in part the story of Profane yo-yoing from one bar/party/group of friends to the next in 1950s New York. I could say that V. is also in part the story of Stencil searching for a mysterious woman, a woman he knows only from his late father’s documents, interviews, and inference. All Stencil knows concretely of her is her initial. 

I could say V. is about this stuff and more and another reader would attack me saying it ain’t that at all. The surface story is entertaining enough—a weird detective story and a romp with a schlemiel through sewers hunting alligators, through midnight drunks and shitty apartments. But that’s the surface.

V. is really a narrative representation of history. On Profane’s end of things, the reader gets a voyeuristic peek at a particular time and a particular place from the average down-on-his-luck guy’s point of view. Through Stencil’s story, a cyclical representation of history emerges, in which the enigmatic V. is not a single woman, but a multitude of women (all of their names start with the same vexing letter, of course). There’s Veronica, a rat turned nun by a priest that’s exiled himself to the city sewers. There’s Victoria, caught up in revolution and intrigue. And so on. I don’t want to give it all away.

The interesting thing about Stencil’s story isn’t just the recurrence of the V. figure, but the fact that each reincarnation seems to coincide with some major historical event. Thus, V. becomes not only Stencil’s holy grail figure, but the feminine representation of history itself—always moving forward in time yet persistent in many themes.

It is difficult to find a satisfactory meeting ground between these two stories. At first it seems as though they have nothing to do with each other. Profane and Stencil are completely separated in plot and personality, though they perhaps run parallel to one another in a subtle way. By the novel’s close, however, the two stories collide in Malta when Profane accompanies Stencil through time and space to the culmination of the V. mystery.

One of the best novels I have ever read.

Nothing is true; everything is permitted: Illuminatus!

Robert Anton Wilson’s and Robert Shea’s Illuminatus! trilogy picks up with a literary chess game that has already been in play for centuries, perhaps millennia. When New York detective Saul Goodman lands “the heavy case he’d always dreaded,” the board is set, and checkmate is only a few moves away. It is not easy to determine just what the Illuminati are after, but one thing is for certain: the only way they’re going to get it is by ushering in apocalypse to the unsuspecting people of planet Earth. Black masses convene in upscale apartments and conspiracies run amuck. Not only is it nearly impossible to ascertain the Illuminati’s final aim, it is also a mystery as to who the Illuminati are. The ancient organization seems to have connections with religious, economic, social, and political groups of all kinds, some of which would seem to cancel out the likelihood of others. Nothing is certain. In fact, the illuminated seers may hail from the days of Atlantis. But, of course, there is no saying that for sure.

The Illuminatus! trilogy--The Eye in the Pyramid, The Golden Apple, and Leviathan--are not just Saul Goodman’s story. There are literally hundreds of characters, each of which gets a chance to project events for the reader’s pleasure from their particular point of view in the whole situation. Stylistically, a stream-of-conscious narrative arises that is at first difficult to follow. After a few pages, however, the reader falls into the mindset demanded of the books. The result is that the reader is completely submerged into this dark and mysterious world of conspiracy and apocalypse. Another thing that emerges is the blurring of the lines of truth and opinion. There is no way to determine how reliable a narrator is or is not. This serves to heighten the sense of paranoia that dominates the books.

Within the pages of these three books wonders await you: rock festivals, Lovecraftian entities, a race of dolphins more intelligent than humans, a yellow submarine, sea monsters, sexual forays, magical forays, sexual-magical forays, lots of LSD, and commentary on nearly every aspect of what we refer to as consensual reality. In the maze of shifting perspectives and the branching avenues of conspiracy theories, the one character that seems to have it all figured out is Hagbard Celine, lawyer, pirate, and fearless architect of reality. The thing is, Hagbard seems awfully benevolent and awfully sinister at the same time. Beneath every action there are hundreds of shifting motives that could place Hagbard in any of a number of positions in relation to the elusive Illuminati. Either way, Hagbard is captaining the trip all the other characters are homing in on, and his true intentions will only be revealed in the smokestacks of apocalypse.

There are probably dozens of ways to approach these novels, but the best may be in terms of Wilson advocating agnosticism on every level of a society, not just as related to religion. Every potential answer or solution to the Illuminati conspiracy seems to give way to only more conspiracies--labyrinthine conspiracies within conspiracies. The authors seem to be suggesting that there is no final answer to anything, that skepticism is the only sane response to every piece of reality fed into the human body via the senses. I personally am not one for cynicism, but I’ll say this: reading these books has changed my perspective on the world, and, I think, for the better. Hell, if there’s no information to be gleaned from the books that can be applied to the world in a practical way (which I actually think there is), at the very least it is an incredibly entertaining ride through the cultural backwaters of the 1960s.

Highly recommended for persons who:

- Enjoy the paranoia-driven plots of Philip K. Dick
- Enjoy novels about conspiracy theories but have a sneaking suspicion Dan Brown is a total idiot.
- Are interested in cultural revolution.
- Aren’t afraid of questioning their own sanity.