VLVL Rex and Weed

[jbor]

Thanks Terrance. I agree that the novel exposes the hypocrisies and
selfishness and betrayals of all the characters, but I think they each have
moments of insight and courage and genuine fellow-feeling as well.

I still can't find anything to show that Rex is sexually attracted to
Frenesi.

I've had a chance to read the Sale book now and I'll post excerpts from the
section which I think most closely aligns with Pynchon's depiction of the
disintegration of "the Movement", the events at College of the Surf &c. I
think that Sale is surprisingly critical of "the Movement", and of many of
the same things which Pynchon focuses on in the novel.

best 

on 5/2/04 2:34 AM, Terrance wrote:

> 
>>> 
>>> I disagree. It's certainly true that one of Frenesi's ideas about
>>> Revolutionary Organizations is "100% no-foolin'-around solidarity ... we
>>> can't shut anybody out ..." and it's certainly the case that this idea
>>> is also a cornerstone in PR3. VL.235.25-37
>> 
>> Surely there's enormous irony in this speech of Frenesi's. She's lying
>> through her teeth in order to "pick a lock as straightforward as Howie's"
>> (236.1) and cover the fact that she's the snitch. Her duplicity here
>> highlights the fact that there isn't any "solidarity", and that this is a
>> major part of the problem.
> 
> I agree. But she's not lying when she says that the 24fps film
> collective and the PR3
> each started out with a belief in "100% no-foolin'-around solidarity"
> and "we can't shut anybody out" and so on.
> 
>> 
>>> And we know where Frenesi got this idea, her mother and grandmother ...
>>> IWW, Joe Hill. And that's not all she got from Joe Hill & Co.
>>> 
>>> And Frenesi is one of the keys to the problem Pynchon perceives and
>>> fictionalizes.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> However,  Pynchon neither perceives nor depicts the problem of the '60's
>>> youth movement as Frenesi's political problem or Frenesi's sexual
>>> problem or Frenesi's ideas about political revolution or Light or
>>> anything else.
>>> 
>>> The problem is work.
>> 
>> I don't agree that the only issue or problem Pynchon depicts in the novel is
>> the inability of the students to get together with the workers, though that
>> might indeed be a small part of it (the loss of the civil rights and
>> anti-War focus is as prominent in the text, if not more so), but I agree
>> that Frenesi isn't the problem with PR3, and I haven't said she was.
> 
> 
> My point is that the novel's work theme isn't confined to the  satirical
> and parodic depiction of the limited success, the failure of the college
> kids and the working class to work together,  of the "New Left" in the
> 1960s. The Work & Repression theme may not be the only problem the novel
> plumbs,  but it's certainly  one of the problem themes that holds the
> novel together; connects the characters, in particular the Prairie's
> families, it links up various settings, ties into the historical events
> that are either alluded to or fictionalized (May Events in France, Cuba,
> Czechoslovakia, Berkeley, San Joaquin Valley Farm Labor Organization,)
> and so on.  
> 
> 
> I think that Pynchon briefly addresses the fact that the Wobblies early
> in the
>> century, and the anti-war movement in the late '30s, and the Hollywood
>> unions of the '50s, were ineffectual -- that they were repressed,
>> infiltrated, subverted, co-opted, but also that they lost direction and
>> bickered themselves into fragments, just like the Youth Movement of the
>> '60s, which is portrayed far more extensively.
> 
> Yes, while the novel extensive portrayal of the climax in the United
> States does serve as the core of the rotten apple, the worms of
> Repression crawling out and crawling in, high up and low down, the
> Repression goes on and on ... the names of the people in power, the
> political parties shift and change, but the repression of the worker
> goes and on. In fact, I think we agree,  the novel satirizes both the
> acrimonious partisans on the Left and the Right and partisans of every
> stripe and shade by exposing their self-serving hypocrisies, Turns,
> Betrayals, Impurities, Foibles, Follies, Greed, Weaknesses Human and
> Dehumanizing . We can see how this works by looking closely at any of
> theses characters,  Rex, Weed, Flash, Sasha, Hub, Hector (just a random
> selection off the top of my head).
> 
> 
> And keep in mind that
>> Frenesi, as well as being Brock's whore, is a member of 24fps, which
>> represents the alternative media -- she's not a member of PR3. There's a big
>> difference between the two organisations -- they don't share the same goals
>> at all -- and, added to this, within *both* 24fps and PR3 there are various
>> internal factions that are working at cross purposes to one another as well.
>> You seem to want to lump everything in together to make one part of your
>> argument and then to separate it all out again to suit another part.
> 
> Not at all. I agree with what you say here about Frenesi and her part
> and about there being a  big difference in terms of objectives and
> tactics and so on. My point (clarified above) was that both started out
> with a belief in "100% no-foolin'-around solidarity" and "we can't shut
> anybody out." Of course this idea was not a cornerstone in PR3 for the
> same reasons that it was at 24fps.
> 
> 
>> 
>> On another point, I don't agree that Rex is sleeping with Frenesi, or that
>> he's vying with Weed for her. I think that he's more like Jinx -- jealous of
>> the fact that Frenesi has snared *Weed*.
> 
> I thinks you're right, but it's a possibility. Frenesi is a busy lady,
> flying back and fourth from Weed to Brock. Rex's sexuality is curious, a
> purse, a car named Bruno. Like DL, I forger what she named her car, his
> sexual relations with Frenesi are subjunctive. Frenesi has Flash and
> Zoyd and more Brock along with  a string of clients on deck.