VLVL Takeshi

[Terrance]

> >
> > What do you mean by Takeshi's narration?
> >
> > Are you saying that Takeshi takes over the narrative at  142.9
> > "Meanwhile, Takeshi Fumimota ...
> 
> Yes. This is the point where he began adding his "color commentary", back
> after he and Prairie were introduced at breakfast. The pluperfect tense on
> 149.14-5 sets up a brief flashback to that introduction.

Is he adding color commentary or has he taken over the narrative? 

It seems to me that he can't do both. 

Either DL is giving the reader  & Prairie the play by play and Takeshi
is adding in the color commentary  or Takeshi has taken over the play by
play or narrative. Which is it? 


If DL is still giving the play by play and Takeshi is still adding in
color commentary we have to assume that either Takeshi told DL this part
of the story and that she is giving us her version of it or that  she
got this part of the story from some place else. Maybe the Sisters
maintain a file on Takeshi too. Remember that Ralph & Co. have all this
on tape. 

When DL and Prairie arrive at the Sister's retreat Sister R inquires if
there is, 

"any interest from law enforcement here?" bottom of page 108

DL is silent. But the narrative voice says, "DL's line should have been
something like, Oh, you working for them now?" delivered emphatically. 

Putting aside the relationship development function of this exchange we
could take this to mean that Sister R is working for them now. 

She has a big computer. It has a big file on Frenesi Gates. It also has
a large file on DL. When Prairie falls asleep the computer takes over
the  narrative and tells us DL's history. Ralph says he has a file on
Brock and a file on DL. DL wonders where Ralph got the files and if
Ralph is working for them.  


It seems top me that a lot of these stories and narratives start off as
photographs, films, video tape, newspaper and magazine stories and so on
and end up on a giant computer. 


> 
> > If so, there is no detachment, "the standard narrative device"  (first
> > person narration segues into embellished third person narrative) isn't
> > employed.
> 
> Yes it is. For example, when the narrator says "Noticing a number of curious
> looks, he glided out again into the airport lobby" (160), it's definitely
> third person narration, and it seems likely to me that it's detached from
> Takeshi's perspective rather than "engaged". Narrative agency in Pynchon's
> texts switches back and forth like this all the time. Sometimes third person
> narration is filtered through the character's consciousness, as with Zoyd on
> the novel's opening page; and sometimes the characters' story-telling (as
> with DL's and Takeshi's recounts to Prairie here) slides across into
> omniscient (or external) narration.
> 
> best
> 
> > Or are you saying that the narrative is still being filtered
> > through DL's consciousness with thrid-person embellishment and Takeshi's
> > color commentary?
> >
> > "Looks like I got here just in time." From then on he was not shy about
> > putting in color commentary on DL's version. Until, just before the
> > dark metal door with the plastic key, he paused and wondered aloud,
> > "Maybe we should just skip over the sex part here ...."
> >
> > First, it looks like DL has been telling the story (DL's version). That
> > Takeshi has been putting in color commentary. It's DL's version we're
> > getting here, that Prairie is getting too. Since DL  could not know the
> > Takeshi parts he must have told her and now she is telling Prairie.
> > Takeshi is merely adding color commentary. Is that right?