Vineland

[Michael Bailey]

On 3/5/06, jbor  wrote:
> On 06/03/2006:
>
> >> DL is portrayed as much more grounded in
> >> these passages.
> >
> > but is her point of view any less unreliable?
>
> Er, it's not that either point of view is "unreliable", nor is it a
> question of "taste"; it's simply that DL's is the point of view which
> Pynchon embraces to show up Frenesi's immaturity and self-absorption at
> that point of proceedings (117).
>

Looking a little closer (thanks for the page references!)
we do get a bit of that on the way to DL's bio, like I say it's the
way he fits the pieces together - there's a taste of DL's ascendancy
as they eat burgers psychedelically, but "she felt like an adult come
upon a little kid alone at a dangerous time of day, not yet aware of
her mom's absence...."I couldn't help teasing you..."" - ie, not the
most benevolent or mature adult herself

but after Frenesi's youthful epiphany, what happens to DL?: "...DL was
smiling lopsidedly to herself.  Backlit by the last of the sun,
Frenesi in dazed witness, her face had become possessed by that of a
young man, distant, surmised" - like from a peak in Darien? - " --
Moody Chastain, her father" (118) -- why at this moment does DL's face
become Moody's face? Moody isn't the most mature or benevolent adult
either

> > The green room and makeup and dress-awareness, the outfit and cadences
> > of the interviewer
>
> You can say that, by all means, but it's nowhere in the text (195).
>

true.  That's a short scene.  "they particularly believed in the
ability of close-ups to reveal and devastate."  And then the close-up
shows Frenesi lapsing into self-consciousness -- "aware at each moment
of the lens gathering in her own image"  well, one can't be all
mission, can one?

Much as I hate to bring up the Heisenberg Principle again, the
presence of the observer does tend to skew things...
And on 196-7 we see the rest of the 24fps observers and how their
viewpoint diverged from sustainability...

I'm not saying she was perfect, but I do want to advocate for Frenesi
what she was saying starts out strong:
"What viewer could believe in the war, the system, the countless lies
about American freedom, looking into these mug shots of the bought and
sold?"
then gets complex and weird
"Hearing the synchronized voices repeat the same formulas, evasive,
affectless, cut off from whatever they had once been by promises of
what they would never get to collect on" ---
who are we talking about here, what promises, has our rhetoric run away from us?
But the interviewer seems to have followed and asks, "Never?"
Of course, the interviewer may understand the passage as little as do
I, just following rules of syntax to fill a pause...

> > I like Tom Robbins; again, de gustibus non est disputandum
>
> Not saying I don't like Tom Robbins either, only that there's no
> comparison between him (or Vineland) and Pynchon's major works.
>

insufficient data for me to react to that; Vineland's one of my
favorites, I'd rate it much higher; I think it'd be worth going back
to grad school after I retire, to learn how to analyze it and write
properly about it!


--
"Acceptance, forgiveness, love - now that's a philosophy of life!"
-Woody Allen, as Broadway Danny Rose