V.

by Thomas Pynchon

Again, he was in the guts of something inanimate.

Inanimate objects are a constant, almost annoying theme.

He thought that all the way up north, along a five-hundred-mile length of underground phone cable, there must be earthworms, blind trollfolk, listening in. Trolls know a lot of magic: could they change words, do vocal imitations?

What is the purpose of all of these tangents?

Only something that, being a schlemihl, he’d known for years: inanimate objects and he could not live in peace.

maybe foreshdowing of a conflict?

“I’ll have to start paying more attention to the lovely young French girls who are always making eyes at me.” “Fine,” she’d retort, “I’ll tell that to the baker when he comes to sleep with me tomorrow, it’ll make him feel better”);

What had interested him most were the accounts of Veronica, the only female besides the luckless Teresa who is mentioned in the journal.

This is the second female character mentioned even though this one isnt human with a name starting with the letter v.

like a woman who dresses only to be looked at and talked about by other women: their jealousy, whispered remarks, reluctant admiration are her own. They are she.