V-2nd - 2: Who's your favorite Pynchonian character?

[kelber at mindspring.com]

Bekah:

I think Prairie is the one on a quest in Vineland - and I really like  
>her a lot.
>
>There are several questers in AtD -  Basnight and the Traverse  
>brothers for sure.   Maybe that's why I liked them so much.
>
>Charles Mason &  Jeremiah Dixon have one major quest and several  
>smaller ones.


Prairie is somewhat Stencil-like in that she's examining the past (before she was born) to look for her origins.  She gets a lot more help than Oedipa did, with D. [W? - damn, I can't remember the second letter] acting as her mentor.  Oedipa tries in vain to find  one lone guide. 

Question:  Doesn't a quest have to have a specific objective?  I guess the classic definition of a quest [Jospeh Campbell's definition]is that the Quester is supposed to find something specific (an object?  knowledge?) and then bring it "home" to effect change or create some sort of happy resolution.  If that's the case, Pynchon deals strictly in failed quests.  Failed quests are still quests, though, and a lot more interesting than fulfilled quests (IMO).

Oedipa seeks Tristero's Empire; Slothrop's searching for the unnamed conspiracy that's given him an unnatural sexual property and seems to be out to get him.  Stencil seeks V.  Prairie seeks Frenesi (and finds her and returns home - so I guess she's a successful quester after all.  Maybe that's why she seems less interesting to me?).

If the Traverse brothers are seeking vengeance, they get derailed pretty quickly.  To me, it seems more like they're wandering aimlessly.  Basnight seems to be searching for his past, Stencil-like.  I think the problem I had with all of these characters is that none is the protagonist, and they're all traveling in different directions.  Whom are we supposed to get on board with emotionally?

Are Mason and Dixon on a quest or simply a mission?  They return home, mission accomplished, but they've (perhaps?) lost the faith.  If they ever had it.  They're the two most well-rounded characters Pynchon's written, in that we really feel the bond between them. For some reason, though, they don't feel like questers to me.  Maybe because they're being paid?  Doesn't the need for the quest have to come from within?

Laura