VLVL2 (14) In the year that had elapsed, 280-287

[Paul Nightingale]

Moving to the second half of Ch13 we might consider the way in which it
relates to the first half. To begin with, how does the chapter juxtapose its
accounts of, respectively, Brock and Frenesi?

Leaving DL, Frenesi "had considered going back into PREP" (280). Brock, now
a "dark apparition" functioning as her version of his "Madwoman in the
Attic", taunts her that it's what she wants; just as, subsequently, "in
those hours of hallucinating and defeat" that follow Prairie's birth, he
reminds her that motherhood is a form of imprisonment (286-287). She can't
go back to 24fps, "to the person she'd been" (280); hence, for Frenesi in
this chapter, PREP is juxtaposed to motherhood as a new beginning,
alternative ways of being, so to speak, re-educated. Indeed, Frenesi openly
invites surveillance by "spending more time than she normally would have
over at Sasha's" (282), where she is easily persuaded that her "old bedroom"
and "continuity" (284) is preferable to life with Zoyd at Gordita Beach. So
moving forward involves going back (as true for the novel as a whole, of
course).

Brock's yearning for a place in the power elite (275-276) means suppressing
the past, who he used to be, where he came from. All evidence of the ladder
he climbs must disappear, rung by rung. For Frenesi, on the other hand, the
chapter sees her, however reluctantly, renew familial ties that confirm her
place as a "third-generation lefty" (279). She is reclaimed by Time and "put
under house arrest" (287): this might refer to motherhood, or indeed to a
family history that is class-based. And as we have already seen in Ch6
(68ff), Frenesi's fate hardly constitutes social mobility.