VLVL Zoyd: good dad or bad dad?

[jbor]

Terrance:

>> He could and he tries to use this excuse several times, but the text
>> doesn't permit it to stand: "Of course they would [invite him to take
>> part in the birth of his daughter] and so it came to pass ... (285).

Yes, it's an accurate paraphrase. Zoyd's self-centredness and self-pity
("would they allow him ... ?") is given short shrift by the narrator ("Of
course they would ... .") Frenesi's the one about to give birth and Zoyd's
only worried about himself -- in fact, he's blaming Frenesi for something
that she hasn't done and had no intention of doing (i.e. preventing him from
being present at the birth).

After Zoyd's "bullying" of Frenesi (282), his jealous depression and
harassment of her ("Zoyd kept going through endlessly tangled scenarios"
with her 284), his apparent attempt to run over Sasha and the pregnant
Frenesi (285), his "screaming and stuff" (285), the way he "sulked" (285),
it's quite surprising that Frenesi hasn't given him the flick entirely and
that Sasha does "allow him in" her house. And, as well as dropping acid on
the day of the birth we're told that "Zoyd clocked off as soon as the kid
was born" (288).

Btw, there's nothing in the text to say that Zoyd rang Hub: how would Zoyd
know where to locate him anyway? Hub's at the opening of some random
department store outside Sacramento. Isn't it far more likely that Hub has
rung Zoyd's and Frenesi's house to find out how Frenesi was going, and that
Zoyd gave him "word of his new grandchild" (287) then?

best

(Now that I notice it again, I think that the "Brock came to visit" passage
is Frenesi dreaming 286-7.)