VLVL [8] When BV possessed her

[Terrance F. Flaherty]

Yes, Meg has got it right. Perry Mason can't defend this bitch with the argument
your trying to make. Sounds like your defending Rex, but he's only guilty of
white guilt, brother. As long as you prescribe Frenesi with the values that
include, for example, Frenesi as Prairie's Mother,  not even an all postmodern
jury can set her free. You have to prove she's something else and someone else
"hung the snitch jacket on Weed" and took his soul. I'll be glad to assist an
able attorney, Doug.

They gonna put me in a jacket, and lock me away, I aint gonna fake it, like
Johnny Ray.
Terrance

Meg Larson wrote:

> Doug offered:
>
> >Many facets of Frenesi, the several ways we see that she looks at the world
> >and she seems to become more complex the closer we look. Not a bad reminder
> >that Mr. P., despite the frequent rap to the contrary, consistently creates
> >wonderfully detailed, substantial characters.  A key to Frenesi, IMHO, is
> >that she seeks elevation above this plane of spoiled, compromised existence
> >-- she's got to be at the barricades helping to move society to a new and
> >higher plane, high on revolutionary daring, danger, and paranoia, as a film
> >maker lost in the light that tugs at her mystically (the way it drew her
> >father) until she sees a chance to rise above all that -- at the same time
> >she comes to see the futility of the Movement and the chaos it's tending
> >towards -- in Brock Vond's underground above and beyond the law where she's
> >welcome so long as she yields to his will.  Add sex and drugs, which also
> >represent ways she can rise above this plane of mundane, preterite toil and
> >trouble (she will blame her fall on her own weakness for hot sex with
> >Brock, p. 260, , then on the drugs they force on her, p. 260-261), it adds
> >up to a powerful web of forces pushing and pulling Frenesi. She chooses the
> >feel-good route, chasing the false hope of some kind of escape or
> >liberation, life on her terms instead of on life's terms, and leaves her
> >past behind. She shows loyalty and allegience only to herself -- she
> >abandons her child, after all, a cardinal sin for a female character and
> >not so pretty in real life either for any parent to abandon a child even
> >when you can see the mitigating factors --  misguided though she may be in
> >her choice of means to produce the ends she seeks.
> >
> Me:
> As much as I respect this interpretation of Frenesi, I am very hesitant to
> romancticize her to this extent.  I am not so sure that she is looking to
> elevate herself above this spoiled, compromised existence, and I don't
> really think she really wants to be at the barricades of anything, other
> than her own (selfish) desires.  In fact, while she may indeed be more
> complex than first glance, she also seems that shallow, to go whichever way
> the wind blows; Brock can't "possess" her because she doesn't even "possess"
> herself.  For your consideration:
>
> "Doubly frustrating because she [Sasha] was furious as hell wth her
> daughter.  Frenesi's involvement with Brock, politically, was appalling
> enough, but she'd also once again failed to take care of business, and Sasha
> was as angry as she'd ever been at Frenesi's habit, developed early in life,
> of repeatedly ankling every situation that it should have been her
> responsibility to keep with and set straight.  Far as Sasha could make out,
> this eagerness to flee hadn't faded any over the years, with its latest
> victim being Zoyd" (58.30-37).
>
> It's kind of hard for me to see this romantic version of Frenesi, for the
> simple fact that every time the going gets tough, she splits, or tries to;
> there's nothing noble in stirring things up and then splitting before the
> shit hits the fan, and there's certainly nothing noble in blaming everyone
> and everything else for her "weakness."  She plays the victim, yet fails to
> see the extent to which she has victimized others.  She loves being at the
> center of the action, but she never wants to see it through, never wants to
> deal with the consequences of those actions.  Drugs, sex, Brock--all means
> of escape.  F, in my not so humble, seems more interested in the chase, and
> being chased, than anything more selfless, more elevated than that.  I think
> it was the eloquent Chris K who said that with F., there's less here than
> meets the eye--and in spite of Doug's equally eloquent "defense" of F, I
> still agree with Chris--Frenesi's a total shit, no matter how we cut and
> dissect her.
>
> A while back we were discussing whether or not we'd hang out with Zoyd at a
> party, and I'd rather hang out with a lovable loser like Z than a predator
> like F, and in one way that's how I see her--predatory, mindlessly devouring
> people in her path and mindless to the consequences of the things she sets
> in motion.  Early in the novel, Z says "[b]ut what hurts . . . is how
> innocent I thought she was . . . I wanted to wise her up, at the same time
> protect her from ever knowin' how shitty things could get" (42.5-7).  So, in
> this regard, I have to agree with Doug that F is more complex than the
> surface, but only because she let Z think it was she who needed protection,
> when in fact, it was he who needed protection from her.
>
> > Interesting to
> >see Mr. P. put a dentist in this role, working for a character, BV, that
> >Pynchon associates with Nazi SS officer, animal predator (raptor),  child
> >molester, on top of the normal dose of villainy that comes with the
> >prosecutor territory. On the lighter side, Elasmo is such a goofy name,
> >plus the "credit dentist" associations that Paul has mentioned -- P's
> >having fun with this one.
> >
> >Olivier in "Marathon Man"--"is it safe yet???"
>
> Not trying to start anything, Doug,
> M.