VLVL "the famous worms of song" (238)

[Bandwraith at aol.com]

In a message dated 2/2/04 7:31:45 AM, Bandwraith at aol.com writes:

<< Frenesi has no idea of the meaning of the tiny pinochle players
until years later. In fact, it is only the song which makes the
trip across a universe of time and space. The players have become
human. This is a premonition offered by the narrator to the
reader alone: Frenesi will be around years later, unlike Weed.>>

It's even more subtle than that. Frenesi never hears the
actual "song." She hears working-class accents arguing over
the finer points of pinochle. It's the same working class
arguments over pinochle that catch her ear,  years later,
"in the rusticated grandiosity of an Indiana court-house..."
and lead her to understand the meaning of the tiny accents
she heard years before.

<<What's interesting is the way Pynchon uses, what must seem
like a bizarre coincidence in Frenesi's flashed-backed mind, to
supply the reader with this premonition, and to ponder its
meaning with respect to the future of "justice.">>

Good writing, mostly gone unnoticed by the SDS types and
effete litcritters, who missed the symbolism, and fell into
the trap of panning VL went it first came out- a nice example
of literary karmic adjustment.

respectfully