VLVL [8] When BV possessed her

[jporter]

Paul:

>......disintegraton of Fren's character, practically before
>our eyes and not very explicably, is in any useful or satisfying
>way a symbol of the shallowness and evanescence of the radical
>student movement real or imagined.

I would be interested in a clarification one of your above options: "...a
symbol...of the...imagined."  An example of something imaginary which has
been symbolized in a "useful or satisfying way" might help me here. That
for which Oedipa seeks might be one. Things imagined, if imagined long
enough, generation to generation, begun as symbols, sometimes become real.
Would the test of time be sufficient to discriminate between shallowness
/evanescence v. deep and robust?

jody