VLVL Count Drugula, or Mucho the Munificent

[jbor]

>> We've been over Zoyd's self-asserted "virginity" as a snitch, which the
> text
>> states is only "technically" true anyway (12),
> 
> We haven't discussed yet what this "technically" means. To me it seems as if
> Zoyd hasn't given any names, but of course all people visiting him and Van
> Meter are logically suspects.

I disagree. The narrator foregrounds the word "technically" to indicate that
Zoyd had been aware of and happy to go along with and make excuses for the
snitch subculture he has been a part of since the mid-60s (22-5). And we
have been over this before, back in August last year. E.g.,

http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0308&msg=84306&keywords=virg
inity

>> and Frenesi's
>> pivotal role in facilitating Weed's murder and the collapse of PR3, and in
>> provoking the deal Brock forces on Zoyd.
> 
> Frenesi's role within the deal isn't that clear as you try to make it.

There's enough evidence in the text (294, 304, 68-70). Both Weed and Zoyd
are victims of Frenesi's crimes. In your words, "[n]obody can deny that the
novel just tells this."

>> All the dopeheads in the novel are
>> presented as fools or snitches, or both.
> 
> Is Zoyd really presented as a fool? I don't think so.

God yes (6, 23, 36 etc etc). He also snitches on Shorty (302-3). And,
apparently, he tried to run over Sasha and Frenesi after he found out the
real story about Brock and her. Frenesi was pregnant at the time (285, 282).

>> No-one here has tried to "turn a
>> blind eye" to Brock's abuse of power or to the antipathy towards American
>> government evident in the text
> 
> So why do you neglect it continually

I don't. These things are aspects of the text. The focus on the
counterculture in the novel is much more expansive, however, and much more
revealing -- particularly in the way that biased readers gloss over these
aspects of the text and continually invent excuses and outlandish
explanations to try to defend the behaviour of Zoyd, Frenesi & co.

best