A Vineland Moment

[jporter]

To my ear, tinnitus and  all, Vineland told a tale relating the struggle
between the likes of Weed Altman and Brock Vond (with Hector in there
somewhere as well), much more than about Zoyd, Fenesi and the college kids,
for whose control they competed.

Weed, Vond and Hector, after all, were of Pynchon's (and Siegel's) vintage.
They were each members of different parts of the same Establishment. They
were the leaders, while Frenesi, Zoyd, the film collective, the college
"radicals" were all of the sixties generation (i.e., not Pynchon's and
Siegel's) and were, by and large, the led.

 The story is about the co-optation, control and domination: economically,
politically, artistically, and in other ways- of one generation by its
predecessors, those in power. As such, it is of a time that is timeless.

 Being a hippie was all about being a wannabe. I'm talking here about the
media version hippie, the one that middle class American kids, with enough
spare change to buy magazines, absorbed and decided to go out on the road
and become. Those on the list who smirked and scoffed at wannabe's, were
not hippies, or had already moved on toward the cynical, the overtly
religious, serious bummism, or simply by that time, outgrown the necessary
state of niavete'. We have all been, once upon a time, wannabe's, although
not necessarily hippie wannabe's. That which kept the hippie phenomenon
alive into the early seventies was the steady influx of wannabe's. It was
real hard to be a hippie much beyond one's mid-twenties without suffering
from a terminal case of nostalgia, or equally fatal- becoming prey to one
or another homegrown cult bent on control and domination, religious or
otherwise.

The original hippie phenomenon had only superficially to do with dope,
which was mainly  a means of subverting authority or escaping the mindset
of those in authority. The key intially was: Innocence- Wonderbread and
tubal nurtured for a decade and a half innocence, great pools of it coming
on line all at the same time, a mutually shared and instantly recognized
media connected innocence. Especially to those more organized forces vying
for control- the key stimulus was innocence (like sharks to blood, man).
It's what the likes of Abbie and Hoover responded to, thought was at stake,
competed for, and it helped shape their behavior.

Pynchon, inspite of the New Yorker review of M&D, is/was not a hippie.
Siegel, inspite of communes and dope, wasn't either. Neither enjoyed, by
that time, quite enough niavete' to fit that description. Behind their
masks, they will always remain attached to the forces of the Eisenhower
era. Their participation in that Establishment pre-dates most of the hippie
movement. How and why they involved themselves with the sixties generation
should be considered carefully, because those reasons do touch on the theme
of Vineland.

Do not be upset if Pynchon's No. Cal. dialect isn't quite correct. Save
your specific criticism for his thematic handling of the co-optation of
innocence and idealism by those with the need, conscious and otherwise, to
dominate and control that innocence. Northern California is a metaphor. It
is Pynchon, by his obvious use of caricature, from Zoyd to Hector to
Frenesi to Vond to Vineland itself, who has precipitated the discussion of
the relevant themes, and allowed the Thanatoids at least the possibility of
rest. Pynchon then, if he requires a label, is not so much an historian as
he is a performer, performing in the role of a shaman.

jody