VLVL The deal

[jbor]

on 22/3/04 12:21 AM, Terrance wrote:

> Frenesi, Brock, Sasha, Zoyd, and  Hector, make The Deal. It's not
> Brock's deal. It's a deal they all have a hand in.

Sure, but it's not a conspiracy. They each have different agendas, and
they're all operating independently of one another for the most part. A lot
of things get worked out on the side.

I don't agree that Brock and Sasha draw up the contract; I've seen nothing
thus far in the text to corroborate this suggestion. Frenesi goads Brock
into action by telling him about her child --> Brock gives the order which
Hector is compelled to follow, and Hector orchestrates the marijuana obelisk
set-up in order to bring Zoyd in --> unbeknownst to Brock, Hector contacts
Sasha to come and look after Prairie --> in gaol, Brock threatens Zoyd and
Zoyd agrees to keep Prairie away from Frenesi --> Hector tricks Zoyd into
snitching on "Shorty the Bad" (NB that "somebody figured" that Hector "could
be of help" in arranging Zoyd's release 302) --> Zoyd ends up on the
government payroll.

> Brock, the most politically powerful deal maker is motivated by his
> sexual obsessions (Frenesi, Mad Woman ... ) AND his political ones.

Brock's over-the-top reaction to Frenesi's revelation about her child is not
politically-motivated. We've already seen how his obsession with and pursuit
of Frenesi actually hindered his political aspirations, to the point where
he had to stop seeking her out (277-280).

> But, 1984,  Prairie is become a woman now. Prairie rejects her
> parent's values, including her Mother's bisexuality ( DL & Ché) and her
> father's music, drugs, selfish irresponsibility, their notion of family.
> After being all familied out she turns to Brock for some family values.

I don't agree that Prairie is a prude, and I don't think there's any
evidence of categorical acceptance or rejection of anybody's set of values
on her part anywhere in the text. I think that Prairie's yearning after
Brock at the end of the novel perhaps has more to do with the fact that
she's still a child, but one who has never had the opportunity to experience
a proper childhood. I think it also has to do with the authority fetish
which is apparently the "ancestral curse" of her maternal forebears (83),
and, as well as this, with Brock's identification of the "need only to stay
children forever, safe inside some extended national Family" (269).I haven't
reread the final sections yet, so I accept that there might be more to it,
but I can't envisage that Takeshi is Prairie's saviour, either at the basic
plot level or on a symbolic plane.

best