VLVL Frenesi/"happy ending"?

[Otto]

----- Original Message -----
From: "jbor" <jbor at bigpond.com>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Thursday, May 20, 2004 3:51 PM
Subject: Re: VLVL Frenesi/"happy ending"?

> otto
> >> It's noteworthy that Prairie tells Zoyd that meeting Frenesi was "like
> >> meeting a celebrity" (375) which, as well as referring to the mediated
> >> relationship she has had with her -- to Prairie, Frenesi "had been a
> >> girl
> >> in a movie" (367) -- intimates that maybe Frenesi will end up doing
> >> Hector's big anti-drug movie after all. Symbolically-speaking,
> >> Hector and Frenesi's dance (350) seems to have sealed a contract
> >> of some sort.
>
> > It's also noteworthy that Prairie seemed to have "met" both of her
> > parents
> > as kind of celebreties, although through a totally different approach.
> > Zoyd
> > in his annual jump and Frenesi in some kind of overdose at the
> > 24fps-archives.
>
> Yes, although the difference is that she has never met Frenesi in person,
> whereas she's lived with Zoyd all her life.

Which is a very important difference because she should be able to tell fact
from fiction, to evaluate images on the screen properly or at least to
question them. She knows the public image of the crazy irresponsible hippie,
a local tv celebrity exposing himself in the annual jump and the reality of
a loving & caring father, even if this father isn't always the "father of
the year," as we've seen.

> But yes, there's probably some logic to this.
>
> > We're not told exactly how often Zoyd has "performed" his jump already,
> > but it is likely that Prairie has seen her dad on tv from quite an early
age
> > on. Whatever this does to a young psyche. She's obviously an expert for
> > his jump:
> >
> > "Lookin' good, Dad." (15.4)
> >
> > "Give you a nine point five, Dad, your personal best (...)." (15.28)
> >
> > While there's surely a lot of irony in the description of the "experts"
> > discussing Zoyd's de- or transfenestration technics and in the
> > observation of the increasing video-quality through the years
> > I'm not sure how much irony (if any at all) is in Prairie's remarks.
>
> I think she's making fun of him, but affectionately.
>
> best

Yes, maybe, but then this would be the same attitude I think
Pynchon is showing towards the sixties people in the novel.

Otto