What's the symbolism behind the passage with the rat archbishop? The one where V. is introduced

What's the symbolism behind the passage with the rat archbishop? The one where V. is introduced.
I feel that a lot of the symbols and ideas fly over my head.
And the whole Ester nose-job part, is there any interperation of that? It's a grotesque passage.
This is really confusing, but fuck me if it isn't written well.

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The chapter with the bishop and the rats had me laughing fucking hard, other than that I didn't really like V

> is there any interperation of that? It's a grotesque passage.
I get your confusion about the rat, but you do not need an interpretation of the nose job

I don't know. Pynchon sure is a goofball.
But what's the meaning behind the rat? Why does he lead the bishopy?

get all brought up to look for symbols behind anything, simply pointing out that this is bullshit wouldn't necessarily be trying to push absurdism and discordia and whatnot even if we were to leave it at that but here at least, if symbol-hungry, couldn't you find some satisfactory interpretation in how your confused inquest mirrors Stencil's?

Why a rat: first it extends the indetermination: crossing species? yes even that is permitted, expands the range of potential Victorias beyond what you would previously have assumed to be plausible. Wholly different setting too, don't remember what the sewers had to do with anything but there had to be something about a scummy pathetic underground world, surviving, coming up? (reminiscent of the ninja turtles stories, no? their wise mentor is a rat, why is it always a rat)
Bishop I'd say is overturning the humility of a small parish priest gathering the rats, because we're at a point where that would have made natural sense somehow; besides linking (intemingling links = strong confusion) with the Bad Priest.

I looked at the bishop preaching to the rats as more criticism of people pushing for symbolism in literary works. He ignores his actual reality to hyperfocus in on the abstract idea of what he's doing which isnt really supported by anything. He also fucks the rat

+ by living in a shit filled sewer below NYC he's missing out on the """bigger picture""" of the country's largest metropolis + Victoria the rat as more Pynchon finger wagging to mess with the "hurr who is V?" reader and prove his own point

idk its been a while since I read the book and im retarded

So I've been had by the Pinecone? Huh.
Thanks!

>the whole Ester nose-job part
Allegedly had something to do with a jewish ex but that's not a meaning

You get a sense of his writing philosophy from his shorter fiction, the guy is almost obsessed with farce. For some reason it doesn't translate to some people and there's an assumption that he's just too stuffy / academic and therefore shit but for me V. read like a a heftily written spy novel with a foreboding sense of maximalism. That whole rat section had me loving every laugh, same w/ the nose job song.
"Have I told you, fella
She’s got the sweetest columella
And a septum that’s swept ’em all on their ass;'" etc etc. The most meaningful passages for me occur later on in the book, but I won't spoil anything.

I actually fell on the floor laughing at the nose job song

the nose job chapter seemed to be about commercialization of sexuality in that she only got it to be "sexier" and there's an overt sexualization of the nose job itself such as the doctor and his helper thrusting the needle in and out of her nose. hell the nurse even mentions something about being aroused doesn't he? its part of the idea of the "profane" i.e. the Benny and the sick crew chapters. Pynchon included those partially to show degradation of society in multiple ways (like the great sick crew painter only painting fucking cheese Danishes instead of actually using his talents to create meaningful art), sexualization being one. at the same time, though, Pynchon seems to reject this idea of degradation in a way because the degradation he shows is extremely ironic.

put some respek on my name

I like V better than M&D

hey me too

>This is really confusing, but fuck me if it isn't written well.

exactly. a major aspect of V. is lack of plot. he was reacting to Beckett just as D Barthelme was.

not about the rat specifically, but the sewer sections are fucking brilliant. the characters placed in the sewers by Pynchon are a paranoid priest, a man looking for his mother, and a man working to pay for sex and food.

it's my favorite after Crying of Lot 49

Man, I really should reread that one.

my interpretation is sometime akin to : representing the requisite for symbolism, and the simulacra that it derives from the seeking a meaning, a sign behind the scene...

Kind of a critique of singinifiers and representations in literature and social structure?
Perhaps I am wrong? I've been reading a lot of Baudrillard.

cultural-discourse.com/on-thomas-pynchons-first-novel-v/

>the rat archbishop

Maybe religion attracts ratty people?

>And the whole Ester nose-job part,

Ester is I think sort of maybe a semitic name of sorts maybe... self conscious about large noses?

What are some context clues about that section? Any meaning, or just, relating to the power of superficialities

well the nose job is probably just something Pynchon discovered while he was writing the novel and characteristically learned everything he could on the subject. it's part of the animate/inanimate theme: humans are merging with plastic matter.

right right and the sexualization of the nose job showed how this merge of organic and inorganic is inescapably sexual

and/or the main reason a woman would want a nose job is to appear more sexually attractive

have any other good pynchonchon lit-criticism recs? I enjoyed that

sorry, google might

No you fucker.
It was the stigma behind the jew nose.
Young jews wanted to fit in with WASPs and made their noses retroussé.
Rachel then scorned Schoenmaker for commiting cultural erasure.

Rethinking Postmodernism(s) (on LibGen) has nice analysis on V.

Ok fucker, so I was correct when I said this
>Ester is I think sort of maybe a semitic name of sorts maybe... self conscious about large noses?

And this: and/or the main reason a woman would want a nose job is to appear more sexually attractive

is not mutually exclusive with what you said, or this : right right and the sexualization of the nose job showed how this merge of organic and inorganic is inescapably sexual

fucker rétardé

What did he mean by this?

Given the subsequent exchange I'm not sure whether this was a post-post-ironical informed post or an accidentally correct post. To set things straight if necessary: the nose-job being about jewishness is explicit in the book.

Hehe, yeah this guy synthesized the main ideas around the nose job chapter well. Seems the Semitic obsessed can't deal with the sexual...!

Am I wrong in thinking that the flip-flop/crazy-cool thing that Sphere talks about is pretty much the main theme of the book?

Is that the yo-yo metaphor? It's such a minor element which I'm sure every critic focuses on simply because it is wide and isn't analytically baited

I like how the book is structured like a V

What do you mean?

When you open it to read it, it looks like a 'V'.

Profane an Stencil converge. Rather empty bit of formalism.

there's a visual allusion toward the beginning about an 'asymmetrical V,' which describes the physical appearance of the book in the reader's hands. cute

the beginning and end of Benny Profane's plot line are pretty much the same, with a number of opportunities for him to change in between. resembles a V, i guess.

This fucking guy...

...

>Let me begin by explaining my title. This essay presents biographical and textual evidence of Nabokov’s influence on Thomas Pynchon. Since both writers have a penchant for oddly appropriate names, I thought a clever title was in order. I toyed with The Crying of Lolita, Gradus’s Rainbow, and Veenland. As the essay took shape, however, I decided to focus on each writer’s first novel in English: Nabokov, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight; Pynchon, V. I considered the title “V-1 and V-2,” perhaps because I couldn’t get Gravity’s Rainbow out of my mind. But I was interested in the letter V’s shape, as well as the sound that it makes (or doesn’t make). I finally settled, then, on “The V-Shaped Paradigm.”
>Nabokov’s first English novel is filled with V’s, from the usual dedication “to Véra” opposite the copyright page to the violet theme, the knight’s move, the name of Sebastian’s mother Virginia, the spelling of “Sevastian” in Starov’s telegram, and the narrator’s first initial. The V that I have in mind appears in Sebastian’s novel Success, which investigates Fate’s attempts to bring two people together. In this essay, I use the design of Sebastian’s novel as a model for my own biographical investigation and for Nabokov’s and Pynchon’s narrative form. The novel’s structure, as Nabokov’s narrator describes it — “two lines which have finally tapered to the point of meeting” — is shaped like a letter V (97).

Hilariously apposite