VLVL Re: Interim

[jbor]

> "However, in the moment of deepest crisis at Rex's, and afterwards, back
> on the campus when the action is in full swing there, she also displays
> great courage, which Prairie takes note of (247-8)."

on 10/2/04 8:07 AM, Toby G Levy wrote:
 
> I don't see it as great courage.  I assume what you are referring to is:
> 
> ...the camera never pulling back, but standing against whatever came its
> way and often moving out into it. "She could get herself killed," Prairie
> cried.
> "Yep," said Ditzah and DL together.
> 
> This is more an acknowledgement of the danger involved in filming the
> riot.  

I think the implication is that Frenesi displays enormous courage in
standing firm in the face of this incredible danger, but the courage, or
lack of concern for her own life, is in part due to the weight of guilt she
is suddenly feeling:

      What she would then have to bear with her all her life ...
                                                    (245-6)

I don't get the impression that DL and Ditzah are repulsed so much as they
are in awe of the way she threw caution to the wind.

While I agree with you that Frenesi's actions are reprehensible, I think
Pynchon diminishes the heinousness of what Frenesi did, and the tragedy of
Weed's death, by giving her a conscience and also by having him up and
around as a Thanatoid in the text.

The brief inserts of Prairie gradually trying to come to grips with it all
-- torn between concern and amazement -- are really well done.

best

> Ditzah and DL after all these years are still repulsed by
> Frenesi's going over to the other side, and Prairie, after the last reel
> of film is shown, remembers only the image of her mother as a duplicitous
> traitor:
> 
> "Her mom, in front of her own eyes, had stood with a 1,000-watt
> Mickey-Mole spot on the dead body of a man who had loved her, and the man
> who had just killed him, and the gun she brought him to do it with.
> Stood there like the Statue of Liberty, bringer of light, as if it were
> part of some contract to illuminate, instead of conceal, the deed."