VLVL College of the Surf and PR3

[jbor]

>>> If this is his point why does he
>>> trace the Turnings and Betrayals we have been talking about into Vietnam
>>> and back into 50's Hollywood and Cold War organized labor?
>> 
>> Is there any evidence in the text to support this idea that he's tracing a
>> causal sequence between these events?
> 
> Yes. Of course there is. One of the things Pynchon is focused on here is
> the labor struggle. The Worker. The problem with these kids (Frenesi &
> Zoyd's generation)  is that they are violent. The State is very Violent!
> But the kids are violent too. They want to get out there and bust stuff
> up and bomb the State.

Most of the characters in the novel aren't violent, however, and
particularly Weed (229). Apart from Frenesi, no-one else amongst the student
protesters in the novel is focused on the labor struggle at all. My point
was that there's not a causal sequence which links the betrayals of each
generation to one another. Frenesi's uniform fetish is supposedly inherited
from her mother, I guess, which might tie in with Brock's "genius" (269).

> OK, we should do that, but Berkeley is a violent place when Frenesi
> attend and when she meets DL. The farm labor organization that Frenesi
> goes out to film is an example of the what happens time and time again
> in this novel. Remember, this is 67-68, so I can't quite figure out why
> you keep going back to Berkeley 64.

When the narrator or Rex comments that the College of the Surf revolt was
"not much by Berkeley or Columbia standards" (208) he's referring to the
Berkeley '64 and Columbia '68 revolts. We've established that PR3 takes
place in mid-1969, haven't we?

best