VLVL Rex Snuvvle

[jbor]

>>> We agree that Rex is easily manipulated.
>> 
>> Yes, no question about it. And he's an idealist. But like all the characters
>> he has redeeming qualities, and he is allowed authentic moments of insight,
>> such as his recognition that the version of the war in Vietnam which he'd
>> been "indoctrinated in" -- like everyone else -- by the American government,
>> was not "the truth" (207.20-3), and when he rebuffs Weed for his "racist
>> bullshit" (229.27), and when he realises that Frenesi is an "infiltrator"
>> (232.2), and when he warns Weed about the "closed ideological minds passing
>> on the Christian Capitalist Faith" and advises him to "bail out" because of
>> the fanaticism of these zealots and the danger they pose (232.5-14). And,
>> there *is* nobility (amidst the burlesque) when Rex sacrifices his beloved
>> Porsche to BAAD.
> 
> He an idealist *and* he's a fanatic.

I don't see any evidence of his fanaticism.

> He does have some good insights.
> All the examples you provided support your claim that Rex has good
> insights. For example, he does recognize that Weed's objection to his
> plan is racist bullshit, but his fanatical idealism prevents him from
> seeing that Eliot X's ploy, an objection to his ideal of revolutionary
> brotherhood ("Give it to us." VL 231) is also racist bullshit.
> 
> Where is the nobility?

      It is difficult in this era of greed and its ennoblement to recall
    the naturalness and grace with which Rex, way back then, smiling,
    simply produced from the depths of his fringed bag the pink slip
    and keys to his 911 ... (231)

I note that you chopped off the beginning of this paragraph, where the
narrator refers specifically to Rex's "grace and naturalness" in sacrificing
the Porsche: "his favorite toy creature, his best disguise, his personal
confidant, and more, in fact all that a car could be for a man" (230).

And the conversation between Elliot X and Rex can't be simply dismissed
(230-1) as a satire of polarising violence and communist fanaticism: it
actually addresses the different perspectives which lay behind the
fragmentation of the Civil Rights movement in the late '60s. (And cf. the
Watts article and the _SL_ 'Intro': "It may yet turn out that racial
differences are not as basic as questions of money and power, but have
served a useful purpose, often in the interest of those who deplore them
most, in keeping us divided and so relatively poor and powerless." p.12)

> The scene when gives Bruno to Eliot X casts Rex as a fanatic and Eliot X
> a rock star. 
> 
> Rex simply produced from the depths of his fringe bag the pink slip and
> keys to the 911 and handed them on up to the podium, where Eliot X, mike
> in hand, a class act, want to one knee, like a performer to a fan, to
> receive them. The citizens of PR3 cheered and sang and voted
> magnanimously to make the Porsche a gift of the community, while the
> brothers began to negotiate internally about which of them was going to
> drive it away. 
> 
> VL.231
> 
> Rex Turns with fanatical zeal from one ideological extreme to another.
> He's an extremist. Pynchon subjects him to the harshest satire. Rex has
> sex with automobile and he kills a man.

Where does he turn from one ideological extreme to another? Weed is the
pacifist, not Rex. And it's Frenesi who sets him up so that he will be the
agent of Weed's murder -- she knows how to push all his buttons and she
whips him into an emotional frenzy where he loses all control. And,
whaddayaknow, there's a gun in his bag.

I don't think the satire around Rex is any more or less harsh than any other
of the characters. 

>> 
>> I don't see Pynchon's characters or his work as a black and white neo-con
>> job at all. 
> 
> Good for you. I can't imagine anyone reading his books and arriving at
> such a silly and shallow conclusion.

Yes, I think the "VL is about work" and "Catholicism and Conservatism" stuff
are shallow and silly.

best