VLVL(6) "conditionally become Frenesi"

[Doug Millison]

199.16 "At some point, Prairie understood that the person behind the camera
most of the time really was her mother, and that if she kept her mind empty
she could absorb, conditionally become, Frenesi, share her eyes, feel, when
the frame shook with fatigue or fear or nausea, Frenesi's whole body there,
as much as her mind choosing the frame, her will to go out there, load the
roll, get the shot."

This passage reminds me of the way I sometimes read Pynchon, straining to
get a sense of the author's experience that informs the text I'm reading.
What Prairie does with the film Frenesi shot, I sometimes want to do with
the text Pynchon  offers, to "conditionally become" the author. Since a
significant thread of contemporary literary criticism denies the
possibility and even the desirability of  understanding an author in this
way (the prejudice against a search for or discussion of an author's
intentions, as it has often been discussed here on Pynchon-L, is what I'm
referring to), it's curious that Pynchon makes this sort of reading such an
important part of Prairie's discovery of her mother, viewed through
Frenesi's art. Pynchon seems to be offering it up as an almost common-sense
notion, that the viewer (or reader) can in fact apprehend the author
directly through the work.  Perhaps it's the prerequisite, having to keep
the "mind empty" that makes this such a difficult task for critics?  Too
risky to uncritically let the author fill it up and take the work on the
author's terms without a theoretical filter?

-Doug


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"All these voices. Why not pluck a few words from the multitudes rushing
toward the Void of forgetfulness?"--Thomas Pynchon