VLVL characters (was Re: Which side is he on?

[Bandwraith at aol.com]

I like this tune. I think we're at last making some head way
against a pretty stiff wind. It's way too easy for insensitive
readers to heap abuse on the talented but fragile Frenesi. 
But there are no living human beings in this text- and I think that
was a very conscious move by Pynchon- We are in Parodyland
here, parody of how television tended to deal with the complex-
ities and chaos of the turbulent sixties, by dichotomizing every-
thing into black and white.

Initially, the status quo, especially the flag-waving unquestioning
supporters of the war, and all the racism and repression that
went along with that position, did not know how to deal with
people who were not interested in perpetuating the typical white
bread lifestyle. The beatniks were weird but contained. Hippie-dom
would have been equally as marginalized except for several
important events- the acceleration of the civil rights movement,
and, Martin Luther King's courageous anti-war stand. This was 
like Paul reaching out to the gentiles. Contrary to the hedonistic
and disorganized hippies, MLK represented a very real threat, and
his anti-war stance was the key move that forged a coalition with the
sons and daughters of the status quo. 


In a message dated 1/3/04 9:57:36 AM, lycidas2 at earthlink.net writes:

<< 
There is plenty good about her. Why do her Mother and her Father love
her? Why does DL love her? The postpartum depression makes her a very
sympathetic character. After all, this woman is the daughter of long
line of females struggling to have a creative impact on the patriarch's
war-economy-body-politic and she gets pregnant after falling in love
with a man in uniform and taking refuge from his abuse of power with a
hippy bum. She did something very bad, but is there nothing good about
her? Oh there is plenty of good in Frenesi. She's beautiful, defiant,
funny, witty, an artist.  



However, P's characters simply don't stay put in one frame. Frenesi is
nothing good in the allegorical frame. In the allegorical frame Brock
Vond is evil.  In the human frame, they are human, good and bad like all
of us. The key to understanding the allegorical frame (thus far)  is the
encounter between Ortho Bob Dulang and Takeshi. 

Again, we need to know what a Thanatoid is and what KA is. What's
happening in terms of DL's atonement, Bob's Guilt/Death formula? 

Characters? How about Vato, Blood,  "Vietnamese Bitch"? >>