VLVL2 (12) The worms of song & the death of "justice"

[Bandwraith at aol.com]

(p. 238)

Frenesi, our best window into the hearts of men, and
what lurks there, is on the case. From the "air-conditioned
hour without a name" to a judge's chambers "somewhere
inside the rusticated grandiosity of an Indiana court-house
-not too far from Brock Vond's old hometown," still chasin'
that ever elusive stipend, it seems, she has stumbled upon
a prevailing trend: wormies, grown large.

The meaning of this rather elaborate and somewhat humorous
"gag" escaped me on previous reads, but I think it's beginning
to make some sense. My attention had been focused on Weed's 
side of the equation, on whose snout the miniscule worms were 
"already playing a few preliminary hands." It now occurs to me
that the other side of the equation- the court-house and the
judge's chambers- are equally in play. Moreover, the setting of
Frenesi's (and the reader's) awakening as to the origin of those
"phrases" is given human scale. Thus the motel scene becomes
a foreshadowing of a fate that both Weed and Brock will be
sharing. What's good for the leader of the "Marxist mini-state"
is good for fascism on a larger scale. As below, so above.

What makes this bit even more interesting, from a technical
point of view, is that the foreshadowing of Brock's demise is
supplied in a nested flashback, really quite subtle, and not so
apparent as Weed's impending demise, on which our attention
has been focused. 

respectfully