This chapter is a reworking of Pynchon's short story "Under the Rose", which was first published in 1961 and is collected in Slow Learner (1984). The title is a hint as to how this chapter is to be understood: Stencil imagines each of the eight viewpoints as he reconstructs - we do not know on how much knowledge and how much conjecture - this episode. The eight sections come together to tell a story of murder and intrigue, intersecting the life of a young woman, Victoria Wren, the first incarnation of V.
This chapter, set among the British community in Egypt toward the end of the 19th century, consists of an introduction and a series of eight relatively short sections, each of them from the point of view of a different person. In which Stencil, a quick-change artist, does eight impersonations The novel's two storylines increasingly converge in the last chapters (the intersecting lines forming a V-shape, as it were), as Stencil hires Benny to travel with him to Malta. Each of these "Stencilised" chapters is set at a different moment of international historical crisis, however, the framing narrative involving Stencil, "V.", and the journals of Stencil's British spy/diplomat father threads the sequences together. The novel alternates between episodes featuring Benny, Stencil and other members of the Whole Sick Crew (including Profane's sidekick Pig Bodine) in 1956 (with a few minor flashbacks), and a generation-spanning plot which comprises Stencil's attempts to unravel the clues he believes will lead him to "V." (or to the various incarnations thereof). Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow. The fact was forgotten soon after in the U.S., so most US editions, including the newly released eBook, follow the first printing and are therefore unauthorized versions of the text, while the British editions, which follow the first edition printed by Jonathan Cape, contain Pynchon's final revisions. This was due to the fact that Pynchon's final modifications were made after the first edition was printed and thus were only implemented in the British, or Jonathan Cape, edition and the Bantam paperback. In 2012 it emerged that there were multiple versions of V. NOTE: You can view the many approaches to V.
During his career, he designed over 200 book jackets and covers. In 1953, David moved to New York and set up his graphic design studio. David was born in Germany and, in 1932, after winning an international design competition, moved to Jerusalem where he worked as a designer.
Ismar DavidThe dust jacket for the original hardback edition of V. Neither the reader nor the American novel will remain unchallenged and unchanged by this astonishing book. Incident piles on incident until, in what amounts almost to a revelation, the pattern of the book and the century it describes emerge with a terrible beauty.Īs for "V.," the unknown lady of the title, she is somebody's mother, somebody's mistress, and a world gone mad with despair. In a madcap, sometimes sad, frequently hilarious way, it captures the ruthlessness and multiplicity of the modern world. Set in various and wonderful places (New York, Alexandria, Cairo, Paris, Florence, Malta, Africa), peopled with vivid characters, V. Thomas Pynchon's creative imagination appears to be boundless. But no two readers will agree about this book because, like life itself, it is big, mysterious, and absolutely fascinating. One of them is looking for something he has lost the other never had much to lose and so isn't looking for it. It is a wild, macabre tale of the twentieth century and of two men. This will almost certainly be the most original novel published in 1963.