VLVL2 The Return of Weed Atman

[Bandwraith at aol.com]

Weed is a fictional character, no? Isn't that the only certainty involved
in the author-novel-reader loop here, since who can be sure of the author,
and the set of all readers is always uncertain and never of one mind? 

But the question of the effect of the past on the ongoing events of
the present and future, is indeed an interesting point of departure
for a discussion of the author's intentions- no matter how impossible
to nail down- w/r/t the creation of the thanatoids, in general, and 
Weed Atman as avatar of subjectivity, in particular, which I don't 
recall having yet taken place.

respectfully

In a message dated 12/25/03 10:07:18 AM, tobylevy at juno.com writes:

<< Unlike the other Thanatoids in the book up to this point,Weed Atman is
clearly dead.  The other Thanatoids might be dead, but could be thought
to be "like dead, only different" in that their lives are over except for
the all consuming desire for revenge on real and assumed wrongs done to
them in the earlier parts of their lives.

But in accepting the character of Weed Atman ten years after his very
certain death, we have to come to a decision here.  Are we to assume that
Pynchon wants us to believe that in the context of the novel people
return from death to seek revenge?  That ghosts exist on the same plane
as the living and interact with them?  Then Vineland becomes a fantasy.

On the other hand, could it not be that the story that Takeshi and DL are
telling to Prairie is the fantasy.  That they are describing the
resurrection of a memory of DL's dead comrade and not the resurrection of
the person himself. This interpretation is much more satisfying to me.

Toby >>