VLVL Brock and Frenesi

[jbor]

on 9/4/04 4:12 AM, Otto at ottosell at yahoo.de wrote:

>> if a
>> reader doesn't overlay one set of "political circumstances" and a
> particular
>> attitude onto the novel then they're "misreading" it.
> 
> I've never said so.

No?

From: "Otto" <ottosell@[omitted]>
To: <pynchon-l@[omitted]>
Subject: Re: VLVL Count Drugula, or Mucho the Munificent
Date: Mon, 5 Apr 2004 13:14:24 +0200

> What gets him into trouble fifteen years after
> Frenesi has left him are the actions of a criminal, fascist bastard who is
> backed by a criminal government which is committing some genocide in
> Asia at the same time.
> 
> My point is that the 60's drug culture partly was a reaction to these
> political circumstances too, and if you forget this as a general
> background you're inevitably misreading the novel.

There's not much point trying to have a reasonable discussion with someone
who lies about what they have written and who constantly resorts to this
style of sanctimonious "I'm right, you're wrong" rhetoric. The point remains
that by bringing one set of historical data into the text and assuming that
"everyone" agrees with the biased judgement you've made about it and leaving
out another set of historical data and the possibility that a similarly
biased judgement can be made about that you're applying a double standard.
As Terrance correctly notes, all these so-called "facts" and judgements
about the U.S. War in Vietnam, the assassination of MLK, Guantanamo Bay,
Anaconda Copper and Osama bin Laden and the like are simply not in the text.
By 1968-9, the time depicted in the novel, the counterculture had forgotten
all about civil rights and the Vietnam War, and this is something which *is*
referred to and depicted in the text. Smilarly, I also don't see how a
reference to Orwell, who was dead in 1950 -- and it's a dubious claim
anyway, of course -- can signify condemnation of the Vietnam War.

As DL observes on a number of occasions, Brock is a "lovelorn cop" who is
easily manipulated (265-6, see also 141), and Frenesi willingly prostitutes
herself for Brock to facilitate Weed's assassination (215-6), which is the
direct cause of her being employed as a sex agent and informer in order to
receive those monthly stipends under the "Witness Protection" scheme (84,
72-3). Weed's a nobody, PR3's a lame joke -- obviously sexual jealousy is
Brock's primary motive in trying to quash it and get rid of Weed, and it's
how Frenesi is able to manipulate him to go after Zoyd and set up that deal
which will help him to bring up Prairie alone (294f).

I think it's quite laughable the way that some readers persist in turning a
blind eye to Frenesi's active and pivotal role in the "crimes" depicted. If
Brock is meant to symbolise the State -- which he doesn't anyway, of course,
because he's depicted time and again as a maverick cop -- then what does
Frenesi represent if not the betrayal and subsequent implosion of the
counterculture?



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