VLVL Brock and Frenesi

[Otto]

----- Original Message -----
From: "jbor" <jbor at bigpond.com>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Friday, April 09, 2004 3:34 AM
Subject: Re: VLVL Brock and Frenesi


> 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

You won't find the words "particular attitude onto the novel" in my post,
therefor I haven't lied when I said I've never written them. You've got to
quote properly. Your accusation is baseless and, as you himself would call
it, a straw man.

You've got to keep the numerous political and social contexts that made out
the sixties in mind. At best without prejudices. To conclude from this that
I believe that a definite political position is required to understand the
novel is laughable. The sixties movement was full of inner contradictions,
political errors and human failure. There's a contemporary saying from that
time expressing this: Fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity -
although it helps!

> and who constantly resorts to this
> style of sanctimonious "I'm right, you're wrong" rhetoric.

I cannot remember having done so. Please spare me your rhetorical tricks. If
you run out of serious arguments you're getting ad hominem.

> 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.

But I haven't left out any set of historical data. Which one should that be?
I concede that it hasn't been the radical youth that ended the Vietnam War
but the system itself before it chased the President out of office who had
got the boys back home because he's been a criminal.

> 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.

Now you're lying because I know that you know it better. You claim that the
Vietnam War and the judgement about it isn't in the text, but the contrary
is true. For example at Zoyd & Frenesi's wedding where the Vietnam
atrocities are explicitly mentioned, taking into account what the average
reader of the novel knows about it.

Guantanamo shares some structural similarities with Brock's camp because
they're both out of juridical control. The inmates are deprived of their
right of making that famous phone call. I think the comparison is apt, Kai's
complaint about the US violating international law is as justified as the
judgement given by the novel on any kind of reconditioning camp where people
are held in an ontological limbo, not knowing what will become of them.

> 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.

This isn't in the text. It's just one guy who on his wedding day thinks of
the Vietnam War and the racist American everyday-reality as if being on some
other planet. That's not the whole counterculture. Fact is you cannot
present any textual evidence that the novel condemns the counterculture for
forgetting "all about civil rights and the Vietnam War" -- it's just an
exaggeration. That Zoyd on his wedding thinks of it as being on another
planet proves in my opinion that on all the other days of the year (except
Thanksgiving and Christmas maybe) he's pretty aware of the rotten state of
affairs in his country.

> 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.
>

The references to Orwell's "1984" in the novel aren't dubious but actually
there.

> 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).
>

That Frenesi has manipulated Brock (and not vice versa) to go after Zoyd is
still a speculation from your side and not at all backed by any textual
evidence. Just by repeating this doesn't make it true.

> 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.

Who has turned a blind eye to her crimes in betraying Weed Atman and using
Rex to murder Weed? Not to mention the moral implications of using Zoyd as a
cheap camouflage and leaving her child. But in her relation to Brock she's
the one who is manipulated, and its because of Brock's manipulations she
gets Rex to murder Weed. Nobody goes to the shop, buys a gun and shoots Weed
because he's a snitch. It's Brock who turns Weed into a snitch (240.6-11),
tells it to Frenesi and delivers the gun to get him killed by the movement.
Frenesi refuses it at first (241.3), but, as she'd confessed to DL, it's her
pussy running the show. Because she thinks she loves him and doesn't want to
loose his love she's unable not to obey. In a way what Brock Vond is doing
here can be compared to what Charles Manson did with his girls. And I really
wonder if it's a coincidence that his initials (BV) are the reversed
initials of the Manson-case prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi who did a pretty
good job to get Manson responsible for the murders and not only the ones who
actually committed them.

> 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

Are there other than maverick cops in the novel, apart from Hector who turns
out to have left some humanity? Ron is familiar with "nonjuridical
motivation" (301) so we may assume that this is a regular feature of his
job. Again the novel is in accordance to what the real counterculture had
experienced. See also p. 248.

So if there aren't any law abiding cops depicted in the novel while at the
same time the novel refers to that criminal war in Asia run by a criminal
government we may assume that the author has a definite opinion about the
official America. An opinion you will find also at the SL-Intro and the
"1984"-forword.

> -- then what does
> Frenesi represent if not the betrayal and subsequent implosion of the
> counterculture?
>
>
>
> best

Because Frenesi doesn't stand for the whole counterculture. The "betrayal
and subsequent implosion of the counterculture" is there, but it's not
Frenesi alone who is responsible. Even if manipulated Rex still takes the
last decision to kill Weed. Frenesi changes sides deliberately but in
meeting her first we realize at once that she's a victim of circumstances
beyond her control too, and of course may not forget this in the course of
the novel when we discover by and by what she'd done. Like so often in real
life for me here too it's the first impression that counts.

But there's a variety of counterculture characters in the novel. Last not
least Zoyd whose first action after being busted is getting Prairie a new
pampers. Please excuse me for liking him. Naive idealist hippie or not,
facing "20.000 Years in Sing-Sing" he's got an eye for the things that are
really important at the moment.

Otto