VLVL The deal

[jbor]

> "Before he was to be cut loose, Zoyd had had to stand between
> two marshals (*.*) unobserved in the afternoon shade (...)."

Well, if you leave out the part about one of them being "his assailant, Ron,
unobserved in the afternoon shade", sure thing I guess. May as well write
your own version of the book, leave out whichever bits you don't like (such
as, say, the bit where Frenesi is in the PREP office without any pants on
trying to cover for Brock by telling DL that he left "hours ago" 256) --
nothing particularly wrong with that approach to reading a text. It's called
revisionism, and it does get a good workout round here.

The sort of grammatical ambiguity being argued for, which could have been
avoided by placing the subordinate clause after the word "marshals", is
indeed sloppy writing. Deliberate semantic ambiguity is a different thing
entirely.

And why would Brock want to hide Zoyd's presence from Frenesi? Why is
Frenesi even there at the gaol? Why is she smiling?

> Speculation without any textual evidence. Where did you get
> the information that Frenesi's aware of the real deal?

pp. 68-70

Flash "might have been crazy enough to think she was somehow trying to
rewrite all their history, being known to say things like: 'Aw, it was a
judgment call, hon. Say you'd've tried to stay away, could've been even
worse,' eyebrows up and cocked in a way he knew women read as sincere, 'old
Brock come after you then no matter where you took her, and --' a sour grin,
'ka-pow!'"

Frenesi doesn't ever try to contact Prairie, she knows not to, because she
was in on the deal from the beginning.

best