Vineland, a tragic moment

[Mark Kohut]

Pynchon is pretty far from Naturalism and Frenesi ain't that.
 
Of course, she has free will if any of us does. That Pynchon 
is anti-determinist, that bass beat of Naturalism, almost seems
unarguable amongst we regualr plisters...
 
isn't Vineland about, most deeply, why America went the way it did 
since the sixties? Which isn't answered by saying it was determined
from whenever....
 
Frenesi chose.
From: Michael Bailey <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com>
To: P-list <pynchon-l at waste.org> 
Sent: Sunday, March 25, 2012 1:38 AM
Subject: Re: Vineland, a tragic moment

alice wellintown wrote:
> I don't think Frenesi is tragic; she is a figure of Naturalism.

not sure about that reference.
http://public.wsu.edu/~campbelld/amlit/natural.htm

sez Stephen Crane, Edith Wharton, Frank Norris, Theodore Dreiser...
"just an animal with a full set of pain receptors"

> She
> has no free will. She can't be tragic if she can't make choices.
> Moreover, her decisions are not difficult ones. For example, the
> choice she needs to make about the gun is an easy one, it involves a
> good and an evil.

just talking about this scene.  Zoyd isn't an element here.
The tragic moment is the shooting of Weed.

Weed ad hoc leader by virtue of his height falls into his role, people
look up to him
whereas Rex seems to have zero charisma but much interest in gaining power

but Frenesi, well she really does take the ball and run with it.
She uses the word "choice" herself - "some choice"

all that movement talk she grew up with, all that film theory at
Berkeley, all that news gathering and confronting authority figures
and group synergy in 24fps and gaining expertise...

all that goes by the board when Vond redefines her role, and the
moment of choice is accepting the gun...

there are a million good points made in Vineland, one of which is
earlier, when Vond says "if you won't come, a man in a uniform with a
big gun will make you come" (or words to that effect) and she doesn't
have a snappy comeback

that scene shows how a credible threat of violence reduces the
effectiveness of snappy comebacks

but you still have her conceiving of taking the gun as a choice
and everything she knows to be good says not to do it, especially for this guy

but she does it anyway, that's tragedy brewing...that's more tragic
than the death of Weed in the context of Vineland, anyway, where he
will live on as a Thanatoid and get to hang with Prairie
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