on The Family---for possible discussion re Vineland/TRP

[John Bailey]

Yeah. I don't think bad parenting is excused here - more that children
shouldn't feel a necessary loyalty to parents who haven't earned it.
I'm thinking in particular of Prairie. So what if Brock *is* her
biological father? It doesn't even matter by the end of VL. Her real
family has been formed through action, compassion, perhaps
accidentally forged connections.

This doesn't pardon parents who fail their kids, but there's a world
of difference between well-meaning and incompetent Zoyd and eternally
absent but dictatorial Brock. Frenesi is a wonderful third element
here, wanting the best for her daughter but crippled into inaction by
other circumstances - ambiguously of course, since she could equally
be accused of using Brock's surveillance as an excuse for avoiding
Prairie.

On Fri, Apr 24, 2009 at 5:28 PM, Tore Rye Andersen <torerye at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> John Bailey:
>
>> I've always taken the supposed Vineland/M&D/AtD focus on family in a
>> pretty general sense - nothing to do with blood ties, more to do with
>> the family you create around you. Mason and Dixon are (often sparring)
>> brothers; [...]
>
> I think those blood ties - and the responsibility they carry with them -
> still matter a great deal in those three novels, particularly when it
> comes to the many children who are let down by their parents in those novels:
> Prairie is abandoned by her mother, who refuses to grow up. Mason may choose
> a true brother in Dixon, but he does so at the cost of his two sons, whom he
> inexcusably leaves in the care of his sister. And Webb Traverse is so busy
> blowing up railroads that he inadvertently blows up his own family as well.
> Family matters - also the one you can't choose.
>
> /Tore
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