VLVL concluding Chapter 7

[jbor]

> On Mon, 20 Oct 2003, jbor wrote:
> 
>>>>>>>> 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.
> 
> In my interpretation, Vineland is trying to do several things with this
> specific passage, and one is, anticipating the sexual taboo placed upon
> Takeshi and DL, which readers will learn about later; this happens
> subtextually, and within DL's momentary reflection upon Takeshi; the
> question of whether takeshi could be of assistance in finding Frenesi
> becomes tangential. DL is reflecting, first, quite naturally, since his
> "amulet" has brought her to the daughter of a central figure in her life
> and significantly recast at a toss her own life, upon Takeshi's potential
> for a supererogatory deed--indeed, in the mythic undertext Frenesi is dead
> ("underground'), and her reconstitution requires a harrowing of the
> underworld, so "still finding out what Takeshi could do"  suggests a sober
> marveling at a supernatural skill set (quite opposite to appraising
> limitation and disappointment, as you alone seem to think)--and then, she
> slides (again, quite naturally, I think, and certainly with ample literary
> precedent) into a consideration, seditious, irrelevant, to be repressed,
> upon his potential as a lover, to which she attaches the negative, which
> resonates both with the interdiction of the Sisterhood and with her own
> intense ambivalence about sex (again, about which we will find out later).
> We are also seeing DL taking the measure of her own ability or resolution,
> projected upon Takeshi.
> 
> By "Sillier and sillier" I assume you mean I am being illogical, or that I
> am using the logic of Wonderland (sidebar: for commentary on Pynchon's
> Wonderland see Bev Clarke's book on Pynchon, Nabokov and Lewis
> Carroll--one of the supplementary texts V. posited early last summer).
> But, I think it's more illogical [sic] to collapse these oppositions
> "could/couldn't" into a single statement about Takeshi's fallibility.
> Beyond the inarguable point we seem to be arguing--that adult characters
> do not discover others are "fallible" (except in comicbooks and children's
> books), the meaning you insist upon forces the text into a redundancy.
> And, DL of course hasn't been drinking.


> By "Sillier and sillier" I assume you mean I am being illogical

No, I meant that your insinuation that I was trying to dupe "first-time
readers" was extremely silly. I'd be surprised if there are more than 8
people reading the book (not really much of a sample that, to start in with
the "as you alone seem to think"-style rhetoric), and there are probably
even less reading these posts. (And so much for all that voting nonsense
that went on immediately after the Pale Fire read was arranged.)

Neither the grammar nor the context support your reading of the two
sentences. The grammar and semantics of the second sentence are dependent on
those of the first. And my larger point remains. DL reflects to herself that
she is "in a pickle" (i.e., in a dilemma, or series thereof) because: 1)
Takeshi might or might not be able to help Prairie find her mother (she
hasn't suddenly "discovered" this, of course, she reflects that it is the
case, and that Prairie might be disappointed); 2) she knows that if Frenesi
does resurface then she'll probably be easy to find anyway, unless she's
consciously trying to avoid Brock; 3) and she realises that "whatever story"
she told Prairie "must not, maybe could never, be the story she knew". She's
honest with herself in these stream-of-consciousness musings, and that's how
we know that she's not being totally honest with Prairie, which is the point
I've been making all along.

But I'd suggest that we move on to the next chapter. I'm obviously not going
to convince you, and I've seen nothing persuasive amid your rebuffs of the
notes and comments I've offered.

best