Come on, Come on, Lolita, Start the projection machine

[Dave Williams]

> >
> > I can understand why one might be inclined to focus on
> Zoyd, then Frenesi, and then, other characters >or groups
> of characters around these two. And, your reading below is a
> fine example of the kind of >readings such an approach
> can generate. I wonder, though, if relegating Prairie to an
> afterthought or to >minor or not-quite developed or not
> quite essential character status is something the text or
> the author >tries to prevent,
> 
> if so, how? I think if you read it as an adult who's
> enmeshed in stuff
> that's a lot like Z & F's life (but even a bit grungier
> and less
> redemptive in some ways), then you feel protective toward
> her, you
> don't see things thru her eyes all that much (that's why
> this is such
> a neat avenue to explore: what DO all these things signify
> for her...)
> 
> she's a special rider...

But the work constantly reminds us that we are seeing things from Prairie's POV and that the characters telling her or showing her what went down and why are not reliable. Prairie is our Dorothy. And, like Dorothy, as the good witch sez, "she has to find out for herself." So the novel drops Zoyd for 200-odd pages as Prairie goes off, again, like Dorothy, running toward and away from home. We have Prairie in the haunted house of the past following her mother's ghost & co., and, of course, the her-story she studies is not only compromised by the fact that those who help with her research distort the past, often to make themselves look better or because they are bitter or have cracked or broken remembrancers, but also by the medium the her-story is presented in. In any event, I agree that Prairie becomes a narrative lens, but she is also the most significant, if not the most compelling character in the text.