VLVL Prairie and DL

[Paul Nightingale]

DL meets Prairie because of the amulet: this signifies both the absent
Takeshi (to DL) and, to Prairie, the absent Zoyd. For the reader of course
it signifies the absent Ch5, the sole purpose of which was to 'pass the
baton' from Takeshi to Zoyd (in a flashback) to Prairie (in the present).
She "at first had been reluctant even to touch it" (56).

In Ch7 she still needs to have the amulet's significance explained to her.
In terms of the narrative it now signifies, or represents, the absent
Frenesi. And the meeting of Prairie and DL (99) begs the question: what
would happen if, quite by chance, DL's scanner hadn't picked up the amulet?
This is an accident that needs to happen.

Momentarily, Prairie and DL seem to recognise Frenesi in the other (99);
although Prairie instinctively feels threatened, transforming the brush from
a tool that has invoked Frenesi into a weapon with which she might defend
herself against her mother's stand-in. Nonetheless, for both Prairie and DL
the mirror transforms daughter into mother, while DL also recognises Frenesi
in herself ("we ran together", etc - 100) when recalling her own past.

As did Zoyd earlier, DL has to deliberate before 'going back': "She said the
name with some effort, as though she hadn't pronounced it out loud for a
while" (100). Frenesi's name, then, or even just the sound of it, perhaps
echoing the sound of the scanner, is itself representative of much: to DL
here, but in the novel also, where Frenesi-as-signifier stands in for so
many stories different characters will have to tell. Frenesi-as-signifier
also stands in for Frenesi-&-Brock (as when Zoyd says: "I don't see
Superfuck anyplace, what happened?" - 59). To reduce Frenesi to a villain,
whose very name is enough to embarrass her former friends, is to do the
complexity of the narrative a disservice.

Moreover, to reduce the scene (in Ch7) to one in which DL procrastinates,
then refuses to tell Prairie the truth is, again, to miss out much. The word
'temporise', for example, certainly means 'to procrastinate'; but the OED's
primary definition is 'to adapt oneself to the time and circumstances'. In
short, DL has to get her timing right, which adds something to the line
about her being "an amateur tap dancer" (103). There is a lovely ambiguity
there, if only one considers the word in context: the scene requires that
Prairie and DL achieve some kind of workable relationship. This does happen,
and it's not based on evasiveness and lying.

For example, after DL has "temporized" (101) she notes the "playin'
make-believe, acting on faiths in things that sound crazy now, [the] lying,
turning each other in, too much time passed, everyone remembering a
different story--". This is hardly evasive.

The passage that follows, in the middle of the page, isn't included in
jbor's list of references. Here, Prairie acknowledges that she might not
have been told the truth; she waits in vain "for DL to tell her she was too
young to be so paranoid". Then, when she concludes by saying Frenesi "had to
disappear--go underground", the text records "a small defiant tremor in her
voice". Again she seems to be waiting for DL to contradict her; again DL
declines the offer. Far from this relationship being built on subterfuge,
it's marked by candour on both sides.

Subsequently, jbor's reference on 102.7-9 seems to be to the sentence: "But
DL only gazed back, as if Prairie was supposed to be figuring things out
too." In context this is hardly evasive. If anything it recalls what Eula
said of Jess: he "introduced me to my conscience" (76). However, just as
interesting is the following sentence, edited out of the evidence for the
prosecution: "Prairie hated to admit it, but so far what it sounded like was
something dangerously personal between Brock Vond and her mother, territory
she was as nervous about stepping into as DL appeared to be" (102.9-12).
That statement refers explicitly to Prairie, what she might know about her
mother and BV, as well as her judgement of DL in this particular scene: read
both sentences (102.7-12) and there is no textual support for the judgement
being passed on DL.