VLVL 3 Zoyd & Hector

[Otto]

----- Original Message -----
From: "jbor" <jbor at bigpond.com>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Friday, August 08, 2003 11:01 AM
Subject: VLVL 3 Zoyd & Hector


> Apart from detailing and exemplifying the symbiotic relationship -- and
> friendship -- which has developed between Zoyd and Hector over the years,
> the chapter continues to foreground that tension between the way Zoyd
thinks
> (and has thought) of himself, or the way he would like to think of
himself,
> and the way he is seen by others and by the narrative agency.
>
> Throughout the chapter narration switches back and forth between Hector's
> pov, Zoyd's, and the narrator's. Right up front we get Hector's baseline
> judgement of Zoyd's character:
>
>     Not that he credited Zoyd with anything like moral integrity
>     in resisting him. He put it down instead to stubbornness, plus
>     drug abuse, ongoing mental problems, and a timidity, maybe only
>     a lack of imagination, about the scale of any deal in life, drug
>     or nondrug. (22.5)
>
> It's not necessarily a reliable assessment, but it's not totally
> discountable either, and that last observation seems especially
insightful.
>

Looks as if Zoyd Dubya needs a lawyer here to speak for him. Hectors reminds
me a lot of "Norbert the Nark" from the Freak-Brothers comics.
http://www.superseventies.com/freakbro.html

Is that observation speaking against Zoyd being a naive hippie or against
capitalism á la USA ("any deal in life, drug or nondrug." (22.5)) that turns
everybody into a prostitute and a mere subject of money interests? Of course
the laws of capitalism go for the black market too.

It cannot be a reliable assessment because every drug cop in this novel is a
psychopath. Hector's mental problems are bigger than Zoyd's. You cannot stay
mentally sane if you're putting harmless innocent people like dope-smoking
hippies into jail.

> Flashback to their first meeting and we are told how Zoyd "stood trying to
> understand" (23.2) what was happening, and then he further displays his
lack
> of understanding or innocence as both Scott Oof and Van Meter do their
bits
> with Hector.
>
> Made suddenly aware of the snitch culture operating out of the household
> (and it's more likely that "[t]hat fatal five-spot" at 24.12 refers to the
> moment when Zoyd first realised what was going on, Van Meter seeming to be
> well-acquainted with the system), the narrator notes that
>

I'm sure it's the first time that Van Meter takes money from a cop. There's
no evidence given in the text that it has been any other way. He hasn't got
that strong character as Zoyd nor his cleverness.

>     Zoyd, to be sure, made a point of never pocketing any of Hector's
>     PI money personally, though he was content to go on eating the
>     groceries, burning the gas, and smoking the pot others obtained
>     with it. (24.20)
>
> The point the narrator makes here is that Zoyd certainly lived off the
> proceeds of the snitch culture operating out of the house, and that he had
> done so knowingly since observing the exchange of that "fatal five-spot"
> between Hector and Van Meter.
>

The point that Pynchon makes is a good joke when Hector talks about "the
matter of drugs" (23.32-33) and stupid Van Meter simply gets it wrong. But
even in his foolishness he's only confirming what Hector knows already.

Q: "You've got a drug problem?"
A: "No, only at the end of the month when I'm broke."

>
> Switch to the present time (25.8) and Zoyd's still trying to justify
> himself, to himself as much as for Hector's benefit I'd say. As they rib
one
> another about messy food habits the narrator provides us with the
> information that the two of them had "shared, maybe not many, but still a
> parking lot or two, even some adventures therein." (25.27) So, never a
paid
> snitch, but .... That "technically" (12.32) is looking more tenuous by the
> minute.
>

But he didn't betray anybody, this "technically" is the reality that he
hasn't sold himself to Hector but Hector of course could draw some info out
of the fact who is living with Zoyd in that community. If you're living in a
house where illegal drugs are consumed it's very likely that you're doing it
too. What others have done isn't his responsibility. How could he tell bribe
from honest money?

> Zoyd meditates on Hector's career, how he had resisted moving into a
> bureaucratic office job, and the narrator remarks that "[f]or Zoyd, a
> creature of attitude himself, this long defiance had been Hector's most
> persuasive selling point." (26.2)
>
> Then comes the main subject of conversation; first, Hector's information
> that Frenesi was scheduled to be taken off the Witness Protection Program
> (26-7). A link is made between the snitch culture, of which both Frenesi
and
> Zoyd were a part, and the Mafia (linking in also with the Wayvone wedding
> gig Zoyd sets up Isaiah with at the end of the previous chapter.) The
> question begged here is whether there are any real distinctions between
the
> way the Mafia operates and the way Zoyd and his cronies operated.
>

Frenesi and Zoyd are victims of that system, the real criminals are the
drug-cops whose daily job is blackmail and destroying families. Without the
illegality of drugs there would be no drug-Mafia but normal import/export
with regular taxes. Remember the Prohibition era. Al Capone would have
remained a little street criminal if alcohol wasn't illegal in those days.

> Next comes Hector's request for "help" from Zoyd in keeping tabs on
Frenesi
> (28-9), which is where Zoyd refers to the deal he struck with Brock, and
> comments sarcastically about the "twelve, thirteen years" of Republican
> government as "a world record for fascist regimes keepin' their word."
> (28.7)
>
> There follows the "Who was saved?" conversation, where Hector notes the
fate
> of Zoyd's buddies in their "happy household" (29); Hector's
self-conception,
> his feelings of frustration and regret, and more of Zoyd's deference
towards
> him; rising argument, and more clues about Frenesi; and then Hector's
> complaint that Zoyd never once asked him about his own wife and kids.
(31-2)
> Hector's point here is that he has shown more of a real human interest in
> Zoyd and his family than Zoyd had ever shown him and his.
>

I bet Zoyd & his family could have lived best without that interest of
fascist cops. Why should he be interested in Hector's private life? Zoyd is
sarcastic here, very well aware of the Reaganite doublespeak. This is for me
the important sentence, the key word is 'family unit':

"I really need to hear some more federal advice right now how I should be
bringin' up my own kid, we know already how much all you Reaganite folks
care about the family unit, just from how much you're always in fuckin'
around with it." (30.37-31.2)

> As the NEVER brigade storms the cafeteria and Hector flees, Zoyd's very
> first instinct is, I think, partly to save his own skin but also partly to
> protect Hector:
>
>        Dude in a white lab coat over Pendleton shirt and jeans (?)
>     now came strolling in between the two doorpeople, heading for Zoyd,
>     who beamed insincerely, "Never saw him before." (33.3)
>

That's his normal reaction because he isn't, never has been -technically- a
snitch. You simply don't give any kind information about fellow human beings
to people working for the government. That's it. This includes even a
long-time enemy like Hector. It's a question of honour (something Zoyd has)
that hasn't anything to do with drugs.

> Chapter ends, last sentence oddly undeveloped.
>

What's odd about it? Why undeveloped? Crazy Hector has escaped, that's all.

Otto

>
> best
>
>
>
> on 8/8/03 12:12 PM, Tim Strzechowski at dedalus204 at comcast.net wrote:
>
> > "to be sure, made a point of never pocketing any of Hector's PI money
> > personally [...] Each time Zoyd failed to inform on these people, Hector
grew
> > furious [...]" (24