Pynchon, Malta, and Wittgenstein

Abstract

"Was there nothing for it but Valletta," the ironic quest-hero Stencil asks himself in Pynchon's V. Stencil's question occurs at the end of a chapter that consists mostly of recollections of Valletta in 1942 and 1943. The novel answers the question by concluding with two further chapters set in Valletta, one in 1956, the other in 1919. Valletta was for Pynchon the most suitable place in which to end a novel that was also designed to portray nothing less than the inner history - the secret history - of the twentieth century. Pynchon chose Malta as the goal of the historical quests in his book because he understood the landscape, language, and people of Malta as the most complete embodiments of the book's most central historical,

linguistic, and psychological issues. In this collection of essays, Maltese scholars and critics devote to Pynchon the same kind of detailed

and sympathetic attention that he devoted to Malta three decades before. [excerpt]