VLVL [8] When BV possessed her

[Paul Mackin]

This is an interesting topic and one I've irresponsibly partaken of by
suggesting both sexual perversion and demonic possession on the part of
Frenesi. Doug feels strongly about the slavery thing and David C has
mentioned it also. But in addition to sexual possession, demonic
possession and chattel possession isn't there a still additional possible
relevant usage of the word here. Cannot this opening sentence of the
chapter merely be asking whether Brock ever really held  Frenesi's
allegiance and loyalty.  Kind of benign I know.

Although it may never be spelled out I must admit that I wish we could see
Frenesi as some kind of a double agent (or triple depending on where you
start counting) like Katje was. No chance I guess. 

			P.

On Fri, 22 Jan 1999, Doug Millison wrote:

> >Doug Millison wrote:
> >> Using the light and film metaphors that filter Frenesi's world, she is a
> >> "negative" of the slave Austra in M&D, Pynchon's view from the inside out
> >> of a woman "possessed", holding an enigma at the core -- the sexual bond
> >> with her lord and master -- and possessing an irreducible nub of
> >> independence that her master can never dominate. Recall Austra led on a
> >> leash, strangely defiant, among her captors, as we see Frenesi bantering
> >> with BV at PREP (VL 273-274) and running away at her earliest opportunity.
> >>
> At 1:01 AM -0500 1/22/99, Terrance F. Flaherty wrote:
> >> I don't understand the metaphore. How is Frenesi a negative of Austra?
> 
> Like a photographic negative -- reversed. Frenesi is white and Austra is
> black. In M&D, we don't get much of a look at the inner Austra, if I
> remember correctly, while in VL we spend considerable time inside Frenesi's
> head. Considering that Pynchon wrote VL while he was writing M&D, the
> reversals -- in the light of the "woman possessed" language -- might be
> significant. There was some discussion on the P-list of Pynchon's "failure"
> to address slavery in any real depth in M&D (not a viewpoint I agree with,
> however), just as Jody observed, early in VLVL, that  blacks and the civil
> rights struggle of the 60s are largely "absent" from VL (another viewpoint
> I don't necessarily agree with); to the contrary, we find Pynchon ringing
> the slavery, lord and master, bondage (don't forget the old Marquis de Sod)
> chimes loudly in VL.
> 
> 
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