Frenesi & Zoyd

[Kai Frederik Lorentzen]

Hello Michael!
 
> Now I ask you, is Zoyd's attraction to Frenesi not terribly dissimilar
> to the love of the Church for the participants in the struggles for
> labor and social justice? In offering her refuge, and binding himself
> to her by public declaration (marriage, Rerum Novarum) and in keeping
> a torch burning for her and feeling great sadness about her absence -
> and in seeing her taken away by the forces of reaction (in accordance
> with law, which she has in fact broken) - is it not moving that he
> still loves her but doesn't share her willingness to break civil law
> or her ambition to overthrow institutions thru violence?
 
Yes! Two times: yes. And I cannot remember that this has been asked here
so clearly. But I'm not sure that Frenesi is really aware of Zoyd's care.
 
Kai
 


>
> oops, not an auspicious day for Sea World after all...
>
> however, about the priest/congregation thing, see...
>
> this isn't the entire charm of the book for me, but
>
> what a lot of people think about the unions is "that was a good idea,
> but it got spoiled because..."
> (various things)
> Even Dylan, in Sundown on the Unions "sure was a good idea, till greed
> got in the way"
> Whose greed, though? I can't demand a full exegesis from a song, of course...
>
> anyway, the IWW had among its founding members a priest, Thoms
> Hagerty. I find his career interesting in that he was inspired by
> Marxism and Catholicism, sort of like the Liberation Theology movement
> later on...and in fact was suspended (though, according to Wikipedia,
> not defrocked http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_J._Haggerty ) just
> as Liberation Theology was discredited energetically through the
> offices of Ratzinger (currently Pope Benedict XVI
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Benedict_XVI
>
> I know, I know, who gives a flip about all this Catholic stuff?
> (though echshually, ecclesiastical history is rather fascinating) --
> yet I find myself wondering if Catholic values do not imbue OBA'a
> work...nah, let me revise that to, his vision of goodness may be (for
> whatever reason) largely not incompatible with them...
>
> so anyway, Rerum Novarum posits a new element in the social ontology.
> While defending the existing institutions viz. family, church,
> business, government, nonetheless he slips in a new element = unions
> although the slot he fits them into is that formerly occupied by
> guilds.
>
> So he signals his willingness to "bless off" (as they say in
> corporate-land) on the labor struggle. The reason he does so is that
> he sees that unions can be of help to the bodies and souls of those
> who work. And the Church, which presumably loves people, thinks that
> is a Good Thing.
>
> Now I ask you, is Zoyd's attraction to Frenesi not terribly dissimilar
> to the love of the Church for the participants in the struggles for
> labor and social justice? In offering her refuge, and binding himself
> to her by public declaration (marriage, Rerum Novarum) and in keeping
> a torch burning for her and feeling great sadness about her absence -
> and in seeing her taken away by the forces of reaction (in accordance
> with law, which she has in fact broken) - is it not moving that he
> still loves her but doesn't share her willingness to break civil law
> or her ambition to overthrow institutions thru violence?
>
> Even his vices are similar to those seen in the Church:
> the Good - well I think it's a good vice, the use of psychedelic
> sacraments...obvious parallel to Church
> the Bad - a certain, well, extra-laid-backness, a falling-away from
> his true calling as musician...
> (not so obvious, but the Church
> doesn't always manifest the true grooviness
> of the Gospel (sez
> Mike who himself fails similarly to leverage his talents/gifts))
> the Ugly - again obvious, the craving for young flesh...
>
> anyway, as the Doc says at the end of _Portnoy's Complaint_ - "perhaps
> we can now begin"
>
> --
> --
> "...the one about the postmodern gangster who makes you an offer you
> can't understand..." - Charles Stross