Back to AtD. Back to Frank,

[alice wellintown]

This chapter is typical of P's lifting of history; we can certainly
identify the author's norms here, his political and historical point
of view is evident; this is especicially the case in the phrase "some
urban professionals' fanasy of liberal democracy" as this phrase
evokes, from P readers, a sardonic wit that is the author's style when
he provides commentary, and is  fundamentally Marxists to left-wing
Anarchist in view, that is, his take on the historical events lifted
from the pages of history, briefly sketeched, are sifted through P's
critical sieve to expose the norms he proejects and evokes throught
the novel, and these are consistant with the argument that P adopts
after GR, as he turns his attention more and more to the stuggle of
workers, to labor, and argues that a liberal democracy can not succeed
under capitalism because  capitalism is class-based and therefore can
never be democratic or even participatory.

These are the politics of P. Not difficult to find. His norms are
there in the commentary, in his selections of historical events, and,
yes, even in his characters, in this case, Frank, who, though a pawn
on P's chessboard, is moved on and in the squares of history.

Of course, Pynchon is not commenting on Ahab, or Pyncheon, but the
tale of land taken, haunted by the ghosts of the oppressed and
murdered is more than mere allusion or favorable parody, but directs
us to land issues that saturate, still, the geo-political conficts
from Mexico to Brazil, and, of course, back to the States, and the
lines, signaled up, and cut into the Earth...and so on.