VLVL Prairie and DL

[Paul Nightingale]

>From jbor:
> 
> In this chapter, the narrative conceit is that the story is information
> stored on the computer (115.23 to 128.27).
> 
If everything in those pages is on the computer, that immediately shoots
down your original assertion that Prairie, "by now an old hand in the
computer room" can't possibly know any of it.

> In the present time of the narrative after the story of DL's life is told
> we
> jump ahead a few weeks to when DL and Prairie are "on a break", chatting.
> Prairie seems to have asked about how DL became involved with the Kunoichi
> sisterhood, in response to which DL starts off by being her usual evasive
> self: "You know, the way you do." (128.27-8)

DL's speech here indicates no more than that she has been telling Prairie
her story. What is clear is that her speech follows on logically from what
has gone before: it is just as likely, if not more so, that the text has
shifted to direct speech in order to mark the return to the present, DL and
Prairie talking at the retreat. To label DL "evasive" makes no sense
whatsoever (unless the reader has already decided she must be).

> Then Prairie notices that DL
> "seemed a little on edge" and wonders if it's because Takeshi was due in
> but
> "hadn't shown" yet. So she asks if DL's worried, but DL fobs her off
> again.

If DL is "on edge" because she's concerned about Takeshi, it's likely that
she will play down any worries she has. Not a fob in sight.

> But Prairie persists, asking how DL and Takeshi met. DL's cartoon scream
> and
> Prairie's ironic rejoinder again emphasise how reticent DL has been in
> providing information to the girl (128-9). And, again, Prairie seems by
> far
> the more well-adjusted of the two.
> 
Prairie asks a pretty reasonable question if two people are having a
conversation in which one has been telling the other her past. It's likely
that DL has, to this point, supplemented what Prairie has discovered on the
computer. Hence, Prairie's question is reasonable, based on what, by
reasonable inference, DL has already told her; it's logically the next
question to ask. The reference to "Saturday morning cartoons" indicates that
the scream is a caricature, and just as likely ironic, as in: "Haven't I
told you enough already!"

Of course, I can't be sure since I don't have access to jbor's version, the
one with the soundtrack. But then again, perhaps the soundtrack is on one of
the pages I tore out long ago. I mean, who can tell about these things?
Prairie's final speech is playful in tone, I think, which I agree fits
jbor's "ironic"; consequently, at the very least, it hardly suggests that
she doesn't have a rapport with DL, which in turn supports my reading, that
DL has already told her a lot. Prairie's response to the scream,
furthermore, is one indication of the way we might read the scream itself.
The reference to a fictional form that hardly concerns itself with realism
is significant. Hence, "reticent" seems no more applicable than "evasive".
But who's counting any longer?