ATDTDA - petroleurs, p.19

[kelber at mindspring.com]

If the epitomy of evil is for a man to spend time away from his children, then Webb's got plenty of company --every father or mother who worked overtime or at several jobs to support their kids, any parent who volunteered for a cause instead of staying home to bake cookies or go fishing with their kids, etc.  I agree that there are parallels between Webb and Vibe: both are bad fathers.  Vibe finds his own sons lacking and deliberately recruits Kit to be a surrogate son, a cruel slap in the face to his own sons.  Webb realizes that he hasn't successfully bonded with his own sons, because he's been busy fighting for his beliefs, and haplessly reaches out to Deuce as a surrogate.  A less evil, kinder reflection of Vibe.

Both murder for their beliefs, but I don't for a minute believe that TRP thinks that Webb the murderer is the same as Vibe the murderer, or that he means us to ponder their similarity.  It's clear where his sympathies lie.  Again, I think Webb's role is to make us think of ourselves in the post 9-11 world: people who can simultaneously sympathize with terrorists like Webb (and Frank and Reef) while fearing the terrorists who target us.

Laura

-----Original Message-----
>From: Monte Davis <monte.davis at verizon.net>

>David Morris:
>
>>  One might say [Webb] was in love with the crusade 
>> and its methods (and thus a bit selfish). Reef on the 
>> other hand is mostly moved by guilt
>
>A bit? A *BIT*?!? No, Webb was *epically* selfish  -- in his own way, as
>selfish as Scarsdale Vibe. (I suspect that's why the book's birefringence
>brings Kit into uneasy friendship with Fleetwood Vibe, a guilt-motivated
>double of his own brother. You can run to New Haven, but you can't hide.)
>
>Don't fall for a trap P sets over and over. He gives us plenty of rope to
>believe Vibe's selfishness is unredeemed because it's all about money <yuk>
>and power <phooey>, but Webb's is sorta kinda OK because it's In the Cause
>of the Oppressed <hurrah>. 
>
>But I don't think *he* believes that. I think he's as pitiless as Eudora
>Welty, who wrote in _Losing Battles_: "...there is only one way of depriving
>the ones you love -- taking your living presence away from theirs... No one
>alive can ever in honor forget that wrong, which outshines shame, and is not
>to be forgiven until it has been righted."
>
>Webb doesn't get a chance to right it. P. 96:
>
>"Thinking he saw something wistful on Deuce's face, though it could've been
>end-of-shift exhaustion, Webb said, 'Too bad my daughter's flown the nest, I
>could've introduced you two.'
>
>No he couldn't. What was he thinking anyway? She was gone. Bitch was gone. .
>. .
>
>'Thanks. Single life ain't that bad . . .' Deuce trailed off, as if it was
>something he didn't want to get into.
>
>'It's a mixed blessing, son....' "
>
>Webb "took his living presence away" from his own children, froze them out
>and drove them away, because he was too busy rendering justice -- and the
>payback for that couldn't be more unkind (or in kind). We know how Pynchon
>loves mines and strata: under all the ironies here is a stone-cold, Dantean
>core of _lex talionis_.
>
>