VLVL2 (Chapter 6) - part 1

[Mike Weaver]

Vineland  Chapter 6 pp 68-91

In which we first meet Frenesi in the narrative now, then proceed, by way 
of a number of conversations and flashbacks, to meet her husband Fletcher 
(Flash), her parents and maternal grandparents, and hear their stories. We 
get to understand the limitations of her relationship with Flash, their 
roots in her past treachery, and move from daydreams of Prairie over 
lunchtime coffee to uniform fetish by tubelight.
In which Frenesi and Flash, clued in by their tubewise offspring Justin, 
discover that their (officially sanctioned) underground existence has been 
terminated by Reaganite tax cuts.
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Hello foax, here goes for my first (and only?) attempt at hosting. I've 
relied on plagiarism to get me here -okay Tom I do mean research.
What I’ve done is to take discussion from the first time we covered 
Vineland, add the commentary from the Babies of Wackiness website and stir 
in my own gleanings. For a more detailed chapter synopsis go to Burhan 
Tufail’s contribution from 1998.

Babies of Wackiness guide:
http://www.mindspring.com/~shadow88/chapter6.htm
Burhan’s summary:
http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=9810&msg=32440&sort=date

The discussion in 1998 was fairly low key, other issues from previous 
chapters continued to dominate. Still, some questions I would have asked 
were answered.
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p.68.3 “Sun Belt city
”
presumably somewhere in Texas or Arizona (BoW)
The inhabited and irrigated desert areas of the Southwestern U.S. (David 
Casseres)

“ 
whose almost-familiar name would soon enough be denied to civilian eyes 
by federal marker pens"  That is, censored in Frenesi's 
Freedom-of-Information file. (BoW)

Burhan asked why ‘almost familiar’. Maybe this is a way of saying they are 
not in a major city. Their location is outside California but near enough 
that when forced above ground there is a sense in Frenesi heading back to 
the familiarity of Vineland.

68.7 “tranquilized by hopeful rearrangements of the past”.  If things had 
been different type daydreams perhaps?

68.13 “sprinkling salt and water” - . in the western post-alchemical 
tradition salt became associated with purity (probably because you can use 
it to stop meat decaying and so forth, or maybe just because it was white). 
i think this may be the reason you're supposed to use any salt you spill to 
knock the devil off your left shoulder. also, a lot of modern pagans use 
salt and water when they're marking out a sacred circle, again for its 
symbolism of purity and so forth. any self-respecting neo-pagan would 
recognise what frenesi was doing as an attempt to purify or generally 
'bless' (in a superstitious rather than theological sense) the house, and 
make it a good place to live. (Matt Treyvaud)

69.1 First mention of Flash and his situation. He is clearly not given to 
dwelling on past forks in their road. This section also adds to our 
knowledge of Brock Vond’s obsession with Frenesi. Her comment “ Well, what 
a wacko” suggests to me that her passion for BV didn’t last that long, 
there’s a distance in it that fits with a passing fancy.

69.15 Westwood - part of the sprawl that is Los Angeles, home of UCLA--very
affluent. (Phil Hostak)

70.3 NFL  National Football League?

70.8 BV’s re-education camp.  First mention? Later a familiar phrase from 
Vietnam after the Viet Cong victory.

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