VLVL Prairie and DL

[Michael Joseph]

On Wed, 15 Oct 2003, jbor wrote:

[...]

> It's interesting that DL realises or assumes that everyone would have been
> lying to Prairie about why Frenesi went away. Zoyd and Sasha told Prairie
> that Frenesi had gone "underground". DL thinks to herself: "That's the story
> DL should have known they'd tell the kid." (101.27) But DL herself is also
> "in a pickle" (100.34). She realises that "[w]hatever story she told this
> kid must not, maybe never, be the story she knew." (101.1) And so she
> stalls, pretends she doesn't know what happened, and eventually defers the
> onus onto Takeshi.

I think this is a bit of a misreading of this particular scene and the
dynamic between DL and Prairie. DL indeed says, "you ought to at least
have Takeshi's input on this" (103), but surely not to unencumber herself
of Prairie's education or company. It seems so clear that she is tempting
Prairie--just as Pynchon is tempting the reader--with what we all might
imagine the strangely inventive Takeshi might come up with. DL clearly
wants Prairie to accompany her, although she cannot guess what Prairie
truly wants. The question "Can he find my mom?" (100) is a hard one, but
DL commits herself to answering it. She and Prairie clink glasses to
"Frenesi Gates." Where's the deferral?

Michael