Kick-Ass Thank You: on Laura on Lake

[bekah]

At 3:51 PM -0400 6/4/07, rich wrote:
>come on dave, achilles heel?  I strike it up in the case of Lake of 
>having somewhat difficult relations with her Dad, Frenesi as well. 
>Them Traverse families, eh?


Continuing with my idea that Lake  (who has parallels  to Frenesi) 
is  deliberately opposed to Wren Provenance:

Lake had terrible issues with her father.   Wren Provenance  is 
apparently okay with her father.  I thought she mentioned him in 
passing but on rereading the passages,  I don't see it.  I guess I 
was thinking that her father must have been encouraging a good 
education (Radcliffe) and a rather independent profession 
(archeology).

Lakes don't move -  they just dry up in the heat  (nodding to Laura's 
entropy -  thanks -  :)- )
To "traverse" is to span a distance with some kind of attachment on both sides.


Wrens are non-predatory birds which fly - scientific name is 
"troglodytidae" because they forage in dark crevices (cave dwellers) 
.   They're small and  inconspicuous but have loud songs. 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wren>

Provenance is defined as being the evidence of true ownership.   Wren 
is  from her father (?) and I suspect they have a decent 
relationship.   Or true ownership could refer to spouse - Wren could 
be a one-man (or one-woman) woman  - when she settles down.

That's a kinda non-feminist reading there, huh?   Sorry - I see that 
- but it doesn't change my mind about what's going on between the 
characters of Lake Traverse and Wren Provenance.

Bekah



>would u say the same about Cyprian's choice in the Balkans with the 
>double-crosser dude--cyprian's choices ain't that too good either. 
>the heart is inscrutable remember
>
>rich
>
>
>On 6/4/07, David Morris <<mailto:fqmorris at gmail.com>fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>I don't know about the specifics of representative roles of Lake (and
>others) in AtD, but I suspect some sort of political and/or
>psychological dialectic is at work.  How else can one explain
>characters behaving so incomprehensibly?  I'm sure that's also why
>I've never been able to understand Frenesi's motives in VL (and why
>her character seems such a dead-ender).  In both cases I think they
>represent a massive Achilles heel in Pynchon's fictional world.  His
>theories can produce characters and scenarios that leave one cold and
>scratching one's head.
>
>Beyond that, though, this exploration of third-party intermediaries
>between two other partners and/or opponents is a fascinating
>development.
>
>David Morris
>
>On 5/27/07, Mark Kohut < 
><mailto:markekohut at yahoo.com>markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>  Laura,
>>
>>  I like this......Lake as the thinnned-out, shallow "entropic" end 
>>of what one p-lister---Mike Bailey?--called 'muscular anarchism'. 
>>Maybe this is why she is so uninteresting, so shallow [to some of 
>>us]
>>
>>  Lake---a still body of water created where rivers flow into a declivity.!??
>>
>>  Mark
>>
>>  <mailto:kelber at mindspring.com>kelber at mindspring.com wrote:
>>  All right, maybe this is over-extrapolating, but if the Western 
>>sequences of ATD are "about" America:
>>
>>  Webb represents anarchism, rebellion, militant labor. Lake 
>>represents the death of all these. Where Webb was busy dynamiting 
>>the powers that be and their interests, Lake passively gives 
>>herself over to Deuce and Sloat, hirelings of the mine owners. In 
>>Europe, the socialist parties capitulated to nationalism and 
>>capitalism at the advent of WWI. Lake does the same. The militant 
>>Wobblies at the beginning of the 20th century devolved to the 
>>current US union movement, hobbled (like Deuce and Sloat hobble 
>>Lake) by punitive anti-strike clauses and the Taft-Hartley Act, to 
>>become one of the most passive and non-militant working classes in 
>>world history. When we last meet Lake in the book, she's a bitter, 
>>helpless, sterile old woman. John Sweeney, anyone?
>>
>>  Laura
>>
>>  -----Original Message-----
>>  >From: Tore Rye Andersen
>>
>>  >
>>  >Laura: Your comparison between Lake and Gottfried as passive 
>>intermediaries is a great one. I still think Gottfried is much more 
>>interesting than Lake, however: His passivity is part of a larger, 
>>historical framework, namely Pynchon's examination of the (German) 
>>mentality which made WW2 possible (Pökler is part of this same 
>>examination, as is all the Kracauer-derived stuff about German 
>>movies). I can't really find any such validating framework for the 
>>shallow portrayal of Lake in AtD. It might be there, but I've yet 
>>to see it.I absolutely agree about the difference between Lake's 
>>and Cyprian's intermediary roles, BTW.
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