VL--IV misc. p 70-71

[kelber at mindspring.com]

Who is Frenesi rebelling against?  I wish I'd had time to watch those interviews with hippies' kids that someone (Bekah?  Robin?) recently posted.  The classic rebellion against lefty parents is to become a Republican businessperson, but that's certainly not Frenesi.  It seems more that it's a form of self-punishment.  She's put herself into a purgatory (somewhere between The Law and Anarchy) to punish herself for that moment of weakness when she informed on her friends.  There's more pain than ideology behind it, her Woodstock best portrayed by the Joplin lyrics:  Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose.

Laura

-----Original Message-----
>From: Michael Bailey <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com>
>Sent: Jan 4, 2009 5:03 PM
>To: P-list <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>Subject: Re: VL--IV misc. p 70-71
>
>Mark quoth:
>
>>
>>            "Betray someone you'd been to bed with"....."had that specialist's code".....marked now for life, "the zombie at her back". her betrayal like another of the living dead.
>>  Frenesi grew up with blacklist/betrayal talk in her daily life. She became what she heard about--Psychologists write of labile [free and easy, so to speak] character structures which move into what they fear; she became what her parents resisted. OR another turn in the wheel of history from committed radicalism in one generation to informant the next? Or both, of course.
>>
>
>Is this a safe statement?
>in Vineland ideology is deprecated in favor of personal experience.
>
>It's not that F is converted to a loyal Republican, it's that she
>finds a place within Cointelpro to express her nature and find that
>thrill.
>Just as within the antiwar protest movement she found a place to
>utilize her filmic talents.
>
>It's not that Z believes abstractly in, well, anything...he just
>registers experiences as pleasant and seeks to repeat and intensify
>them...including his love