VLVL concluding Chapter 7

[jbor]

>>>>>> It's pretty straightforward that Prairie is asking for information and
>>>>>> help
>>>>>> in finding (physically and metaphorically) Frenesi. And it's immediately
>>>>>> followed by DL realising she's "in a pickle", acknowledging Takeshi's
>>>>>> fallibility,
>>>>> 
>>>>> The text suggests that DL feels that she is in a pickle, not because of
>>>>> Takeshi's "fallibility" (your intervention), but because of his
>>>>> prowess--"she was still finding out what he could do" (100). Pynchon is so
>>>>> obviously implying Takeshi might be capable of doing anything. Why else
>>>>> rig up his business card as an "amulet"--and why else repeat the term
>>>>> "amulet"? Surely there are better ways to imply "fallibility"?
>>>> 
>>>> Years with Takeshi, and she was still finding out what he
>>>> could do. And couldn't.
>>> 
>>> Nice try, but clearly a reference to their sexual abstinence, and his
>>> ability to exert self control.
>> 
>> Sure it is, Mike.
>> 
> Knew you'd protest, perhaps on behalf of first-time readers for whom the
> abstinence issue hadn't been introduced, and who therefore wouldn't be
> able to react to this nuance. But, fallibility? For fallibility to become
> an issue, one has either to have started from the point of considering a
> character infallibile, and we've already seen Takeshi rely upon Zoyd to
> conceal him from the mysterious sky patrol (never mind the operative
> assumptions of adult fiction), or to have a text focalized from a naive
> perspective for whom infallibility is an option, and, surely, DL cannot
> strike any reader as naive.

Say what? DL has got Prairie's hopes up at the prospect of what Takeshi
might be able to do to help. The girl's sudden eagerness causes DL to
reflect:

    Years with Takeshi, and she was still finding out what he
    could do. And couldn't.

So let me get this straight. In your interpretation DL was "still finding
out" that she and Takeshi were forbidden to have sex? (Chronic memory loss
on her part, apparently.) And you're trying to argue that "couldn't" =
"self-control"?!

Sillier and sillier.

best