Danger Will Robinson! Danger! (Was warped . . .)

[Terrance F. Flaherty]

Meg Larson wrote:

> "Everywhere I go I'm asked if the universities stifle writers.
> My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them." ---Flannery O'Connor
>
> Meg Larson
> Saginaw Valley State University
> University Center, MI  48710
> mgl at tardis.svsu.edu
>
> cfa sed, in part:
>
> If Vineland cannot be commended on any other grounds (and I do not
> cleave to that conviction) it must surely be praised for this
> particular trick. Pynchon has created in Frenesi the image of the
> fickle, mercenary, irresponsible succubus - and yet who, among his
> readers and even his characters fails to fall for her. The most
> ambivalent response to Frenesi seems to be that of HER OWN daughter.
>

Fall for her? The ambivalence you speak of is not only evident in Prairie's
response to her mother. Most of the characters in Vineland respond, behave,
experience, counter, double, Frenesi’s ambivalence. In the chapter currently
under discussion, we are told that Weed is “deeply confused about Frenesi, whom
he loved but didn’t completely trust, because of gaps in her story, absences
neither she nor anyone else in 24fps would explain.” Perhaps this what you are
referring to as “Pynchon’s particular trick”? In our quest for Frenesi we travel
back and forth in time-in story, in narrative, in history. Frenesi has a real
problem with time, story, history and most importantly, with narrative-including
Vineland as such. On 232-233  Rex, Weed, and Frenesi discuss history and math.
(Note the parodies of both in the paragraph that begins “I don’t think so” and
ends with “and all for what?”} Deferring, what would amount to a protracted,
often tedious, inherently controversial, and perhaps redundant discussion of
math and history in Vineland, consider Frenesi’s response:
“ She was aware of her importance here, shaded, safe, saved, a person for them
both to pretend to explain things to, as a way of negotiating an agreeable
version of history.” Can we “fall for her” “shaded, safe, saved, version of
history” or will we be “betrayed by that “handjob”? Consider Frenesi’s statement
on 235, “Don’t any of you kiddies understand, we either have 100%
no-foolin’-around solidarity or it just doesn’t work.” Where did she learn of
solidarity? Oh yea, watching CHIPS. Weed loves her but does not trust her-hmmm.
“Let the grim femenist rave
83. “But what hurts, Zoyd went on, is how innocent I
thought she was. Fuckin’ fool
Was I stupid.” 42  “Frenesi, do you think that
love can save anybody? You do, don’t you?” “At the time he hadn’t learned what a
stupid question it was” 39.  Stupid question to ask Frenesi, but a brilliant
question to ask. Unlike Praire, who complains, “I love you Dad. But it’s
incomplete” and asks, “was that part of the deal, that I was never supposed to
have a mom” 53, I understand Zoyd’s love for his daughter as flawed yet complete
and impregnable. Hey, Zoyd’s dress looks good on T.V. and in the postmodern
world of rented wombs, frozen embryos, and soon perhaps, Bokanovskified eggs,
who needs Frenesi and her history.  Prairie’s quest for her mother (physical,
emotional psychological), will, at the end of the novel, threaten Zoyd’s role as
Father/Mother, when Frenesi’s “dangerous vices” assault and haunt her daughter.
Zoyd’s history of love for his daughter and a little dab of Preparation Humor,
saves Prairie from falling prey to her mother’s “dagerous vice-that she was on
her own, with no legal history, no politics, only an average California chick,
invisible, poised at life’s city limits, for whom anything was still possible.”
Ok, so you can make your self invisible, but can you love? Would you put on a
dress and jump through a window in the light of public scrutiny to save someone
you love? Frenesi’s invisibility is as dangerous and as insidious as DL’s. “If
Frenesi’s realm was light, DL’s was the dark” 250. And Frenesi, when DL asks, “
Well, what is the story?” replies, “What do you care
I’m not some pure creature,
the Film Queen, some no emotion piece of machinery, everything for the shot,
come on DL
” Prairiie's not buying this fil-clip-“What chance have I got?
(Prairie to Zoyd, irony)
 knowing what was at stake for all you guys, how could
she?” 266. Hey kid, give your mother a break-she's a show biz kid making movies
of herself you know she don't give a fuck about any...have to stop, I could
never get that lick. In Vineland, Zoyd is a Hero, Frenesi is well, NOT.

> To make the distaff side of this family the focus of both its good
> and bad qualities is evidence (to this simpleton, anyway) that
> Pynchon, in spite of the criticism of his handling of female
> characters and issues, has a very sober and respectful view of that
> sex. "They" are strong, competent, driven, and in the case of DL,
> positively dangerous. As such, I think these female characters
> represent a palapable evolution from Oedipa, who  , though not a
> weakling, seems to have less "volume".
>

> Competent? Tell that to Weed.
>

> Me sez:
> I've been pondering this insightful post from cfa, and it seems to me that
> Frenesi, rather than DL, is the more dangerous of the two, for the reasons
> that cfa describes:  she's fickle and mercenarial and irresponsible, and we
> all fall for her in spite of ourselves.  While DL can kill physical beings,
> F. kills the soul of beings--hence, Prairie's ambivalence toward her
> "mother", b/c all she really knows of F. is what has been related to
> her--she has no first-hand knowledge of F.  Is it possible, in light of the
> discussion on family "legacies," that Prairie is trying to find hers?  The
> family histoire of the Beckers' and Traverses certainly extends to Prairie,
> but it seems to sort of stop with her as well; after all, she essentially
> grew up "Wheeler" by virtue of being raised by her father.  Frenesi
> certainly warps the family values but they were values handed down by two
> parents and two families (and which she is doing w/ Flash and Justin to some
> extent); Prairie seems to have gotten the short end of the stick in this
> regard--a one-sided legacy that seems driven by Zoyd's ambivalence toward
> his entire relationship with F. (and not to mention his anger toward her).
> I'm not entirely sure where I'm going with this, so I'll stop here.
>

in this gypsy- roofer's opinion you have shingled- it- square and you layed it
down with hand-nailing percision.

Terrance