VLVL concluding Chapter 7

[Michael Joseph]

On Tue, 21 Oct 2003, jbor wrote:

> > 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.
>
Okay. While I do feel a bit eye-gouged by your Jimmy Snuka-style rhetoric,
at your request I will refrain from offering any more of what you
characterize strangely as "rebuffs."


Michael