VLVL Frenesi

[jbor]

>> I seriously doubt that Frenesi's meant to be a student of Lewis Mumford,
>> though I'm open to persuasion.
> 
> Not Frenesi, Pynchon. Pynchon read Mumford.

I'm still unclear as to what you're basing this assertion on. I can't see
how the two quotes from Mumford connect with the passage describing what
Frenesi dreamed back when she was with 24 fps, and the way this passage fits
into the broader narrative schema of Pynchon's text.
 
> Her zeal and mystical fascination with
>> "light" characterises her vision as something akin to religious revelation
>> (cf. 202.4-10), and it sets her up as some sort of false prophet.
> 
> She got a lot of that fascination with light from old man. He fell head
> over heels for the big bright machine.

With the obvious additional (and satiric) religious symbolism of how she'd
"seen the light". The 24 fps crew squabbling about "light" (201-2) is quite
funny.

>> The point here seems to be that her idealistic humanism was both instinctive
>> and sincere. 
> 
> Her idealistic humanism?

Sure. Her vision of that "mysterious people's oneness", of individuals
"being seen to transcend" and putting their bodies on the line against the
forces of oppression. As per the quote. The one from Pynchon's text.

> Frenesi dreamed of a mysterious people's oneness, drawing together
> toward the best chances of light, achieved once or twice that she'd seen
> in the street, in short, timeless bursts, all paths, human and
> projectile, true, the people in a single presence, the police likewise
> simple as a moving blade -- and individuals who in meetings might only
> bore or be pains in the ass here suddenly being seen to transcend,
> almost beyond will to move smoothly between baton and victim to take
> the blow instead, to lie down on the tracks as the iron rolled in or
> look into the gun muzzle and maintain the power of speech -- there was no
> telling, in those days, who might unexpectedly change this way, or when.
> Some were in it, in fact, secretly for the possibilities of finding just
> such moments. (118-9)

best

> But, as readers, we also factor in the ease with which she was
>> turned, how quickly these ideals were overwhelmed by Brock and by her own
>> sexual instincts, and the treachery and negligence wrought as a result.
>> She's a bit like Weissmann in _GR_ in this respect, and a cautionary fable
>> against this style of revolutionary idealism.