VL--IV Passivity, more active thoughts

[Michael Bailey]

David sez:

> I agree that they're as deeply developed as "the next" Pynchon
>  character.  That "cardboard" issue has been tossed around here
>  sufficiently.  The problem with Frenesi &  Lake is that they take
>  life-path choices that **require** some deep explanations ( because
>  they significantly & negatively affect their own families as well as
>  the major plot turns of the books), but the author doesn't
>  sufficiently supply them.

but that's one of the things that rings most true.  Isn't it?
Hmmm?  Hmmm?  Eh, wot?

Why do our lives take the courses they do?   We have a little control
over some things, but as Eliot said, we often surrender to "a moment's
abandon that an age of prudence can never undo" Freud couldn't answer
"What do women want?" even to his own satisfaction.
Why *did* Kissinger carpet-bomb the Montagnards?  Hitchens found a
meeting transcript where Kissinger said "I'm not getting a kickback
[on the bombs])"
Why did Rockefeller get such a kick out of putting other oil companies
out of business?  He was already making a good living!
Why do some people like to smoke pot? You can get plenty of good
feelings other ways.
Why do other people think it's worth a lot of government money to
persecute those who do smoke pot?  Don't they ever feel a bit sorry
about that?
Why have so many marriages broken up?

Not only hippies ride the waves of life without knowing everything
that's swimming under the surface...I don't think Pynchon is shirking
by not offering explanations of stuff in his books that reflects
unknowables in real llife. The characters have plenty of the partial,
working understandings that we come up with to get by; and the text
also offers takes - including critiques - on various theories that are
floating around.


I still think the choice of details, and a seemly agnosticism as to
final motivation, makes these characters some of the richest , most
savorable ones around.