Screening reality

[Jeff & Penny Harper]

Hi all,

I've been off-list for about five years, but a recent re-reading of _Vineland_
prompted me to check back in.  My apologies if I'm visiting already well-
trodden ground!

I was thinking about how the movie and TV references in _Vineland_ help 
emphasize the distances between the characters, and how the Tube 
attenuates their connections to the real world.  In my most recent reading, 
I noticed that, in two places, Pynchon makes this point explicitly:

(p. 237, hardcover)  ... Frenesi understood that she had taken at least
one irreversible step to the side of her life, and that now, as if on some
unfamiliar drug, she was walking around next to herself, haunting herself,
attending a movie of it all [...] where she could kick back and watch the
unfolding drama.

(p. 351) The smartest kid Justin ever met, back in kindergarten, had told
him to pretend his parents were characters in a television sitcom.  "Pretend
there's a frame around 'em like in the Tube, pretend they're a show you're
watching.  You can go into it if you want, or you can just watch, and *not*
go into it."

Seems to me that as a metaphor this has even more punch now than 
when _Vineland_ was written, though I'd be tempted to add PC monitors
to the list of addictive, distancing devices.

Penny

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