GRGR(5): note on Katje

[calbert at pop.tiac.net]

> >She brings death to
> >"families" and "kids", and yet we can still construct and announce our
> >sense of her 'humanity' and her 'nobility', even her 'idealism'. It's
> >really quite an exceptional effect Pynchon has rendered.
> 
> The same effect, I think - and mentioned before I believe -, that we find
> with Frenesi.  There has been recent talk, and during VLVL about Frenesi,
> that they take the "selfish" or easy way.  I've never understood this.  I
> can't imagine how they could have put themselves in more dangerous, more
> punishing - more lonely - postions.  Why?

But we get a pretty good rationalization for Frenesi in the 
description of her family history. There is a pretty explicit 
suggestion that Frenesi has seen the petty side of "the Great 
struggle" (her father flipping the bird at movie credits cuz some 
name owed him money), and that she finds little to choose between the 
sides.

I don't think Katje's symptoms are the same, its just the result 
which is so similar.

love,
cfa