[kelber at mindspring.com]

Your few and weak arguments for Zoyd as protagonist are all good and cogent and true.  Still see it as a multi-protagonist work.  Kind of like one of those bad family sit-coms where different episodes choose different characters as the protagonist.  You know those horrid recap episodes those 70s shows would occasionally have, where they'd have the characters reminiscing and show clips from past episodes?  DL and Prairie looking at the footage of Frenesi is a little like that.  And you can almost hear the canned applause-laugh track when Prairie makes the Preparation H joke to Vond at the end.

Laura

-----Original Message-----
>From: Michael Bailey <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com>

>
>all good and cogent and true.
>
>My few and weak arguments for Zoyd -
>
>a) personal - it just hits me that way, de gustibus et cetera
>
>b) like Benny at the end of V., he hasn't learned a goddamned thing
>
>c) like  Oedipa at the end of CL49, he is facing a necessity of taking
>some kind of major action that will change his life, and just as in
>CL49 we haven't a fricking clue what it'll be
>
>d) Like Slothrop at the end of GR, but not as drastically, he is
>fading away in many significant respects - diminution of hirsuteness,
>loss of home, Prairie is growing up and making his fatherhood less
>urgent, his forlorn love of Frenesi is even more hopeless as he both
>befriends Flash and also perceives him as threatening (not somebody he
>can supplant)
>
>e) like in M&D, he's one of a pair of close friends, though this
>closeness with van Meter is only touched on cursorily
>
>f) like Webb in AtD, the consequences of his life choices begin to
>seriously disrupt his day to day existence
>
>and like most Pynchon protagonists, we aren't meant to completely
>sympathize with him
>
>
>
>-- 
> - "yep, he'd murmur, still making stupid mistakes and how about
>yerself?" - Zoyd, p 24