VLVL Frenesi/"happy ending"?

[Otto]

----- Original Message -----
From: "jbor" <jbor at bigpond.com>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Saturday, May 22, 2004 1:25 AM
Subject: Re: VLVL Frenesi/"happy ending"?


> >> And cf. the more impartial judgement made by a similarly-aged young
> >> girl who comes into contact with Zoyd on the highway: "you ought to
> >> be locked up"
> >> (5.18-19).
> >>
> >
> > Impartial?
>
> Prairie, being his daughter, is obviously partial to Zoyd. The young girl
> on the highway, who doesn't know him from Adam, is impartial.
> (I don't think she or her parents are Nazis, by the way. Is there any
> evidence in the text to support this interpretation?)

I do not question the fact that Prairie is partial.

The way the child reacts to a man, a total stranger in another car
on the highway wearing a woman's dress.

I did not say that the parents *are* nazis, but the fact that the kid may
shout this audacity without getting trouble is worrying. It reminds me of
the children in nazi Germany who were allowed to chase Jews from the
pavement. As I've said, it's the same "spirit" of bringing up kids who have
no respect towards other people. Prairie never shows such behavior, so I
may conclude that her upbringing included respect and tolerance, thus Zoyd's
been a better father than the parents of this child calling at him.

> At least the touring families in the
> Winnebagos are just admiring the redwoods, unlike the members of the
> Traverse-Becker clan who have been cutting them down for generations.
>
> best
>

And killing them with the waste gas of their cars.

>
> > Having got parents who share lemming-like behaviour and expose
> > their children to that kind of holiday? No wonder that such judgment
about
> > another person emerges. I mean, locking people up just because of the
way
> > they look -- sounds to me like the same spirit that had inhibited
> > nazi-Germany. I bet her daddy's got a gun.