VLVL 3 Zoyd & Hector

[Otto]

----- Original Message -----
From: "jbor" <jbor at bigpond.com>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Monday, August 11, 2003 10:43 AM
Subject: Re: VLVL 3 Zoyd & Hector


>
> >>> So far, the description of Republican government in the US as a
"fascist
> >>> regime" (28.10) is Zoyd's hyperbole only.
> >>
> >> Cf. the Burket essay Terrance posted earlier:
> >>
> >> Zoyd uses words like "fascist" to describe the government, but
> >> he does not bother to challenge it or try to resist it; he simply
> >> evades it as much as possible. Not to mention the fact that, despite
> >> his protest to the contrary, he has not really avoided becoming an
> >> agent of the State law enforcement apparatus: his "defenestration"
> >> performance, paid for with his disability check, shows him really
> >> to be working for the State whether he admits it or not.
> >>
> >> http://www.law.utexas.edu/lpop/etext/okla/burket24.htm#1
>
>
> on 10/8/03 11:07 PM, Otto at ottosell at yahoo.de wrote:
>
> > America -- love it or leave it.
> >
> > That 'hyperbole' (if it is one) was the common conviction among the
> > hippies/yippies coming to Chicago on August 29, 1968.
>
> Zoyd is talking about the US under Republican govts c. 1971-1984 (1969
> actually, but Zoyd is pretty apolitical in reality). You're referring, I
> think, to protests against a Democrat government which had upped US
> involvement in what by then was becoming an unpopular war in Vietnam.
>

As if there's a difference between Democrats and Republicans on the question
of illegal narcotica.
"I smoked, but did not inhale."

"The politics of the event is Pot. Dig it! John Sinclair's in fuckin prison
ten years for two fuckin joints."
(Abbie Hoffman, _Woodstock Nation_, 1969-71 p. 142.)

"In July 1969 Sinclair was sentenced to prison for 9 1/2 to 10 years for
possession of two marijuana cigarettes."
http://www.umich.edu/~bhl/bhl/refhome/jls/John.htm

"When the state whithers away, Hector." (28)

> I don't agree with you that the text portrays Zoyd as having "no choice"
in
> 1984.

Please elaborate the choices he had according to the text.

"Go anyway, it don't matter -- hey, Mongolia." (28)

>I don't agree with you that the text presents the deal between Zoyd
> and Brock as "Orwellian" or that it is anything like the torture and
> brainwashing carried out on Winston Smith in Room 101 in _1984_.

"The worst thing in the world, " said O'Brien, "varies from individual to
individual. It may be buried alive, or death by fire, or by drowning, or by
impalement, or fifty other deaths. There are cases where it is some quite
trivial thing, not even fatal"
(Orwell, 1984, p. 293)

So what about Leroy and his "favourite pastime" next to eating watermelon?
What about the prospect of 20.000 years in Sing-Sing?

> And I don't
> agree with you that Hector is ever presented as a "human rat" in the
novel.

No, shooting at people is no human-rat behaviour (29). Every narc is a human
rat, by profession, and Pynchon's novel shows this, but it too shows there
are differences as between Hector and BV. Hector's got a family, BV only his
job.

>
> Quote some text and we can discuss it, but so far what we have seen is
Zoyd
> struggling to ignore what his own conscience is trying to tell him,
putting
> on a show of bravado and "attitude" (26.2) but in reality being quite
> content to meet up with Hector, and other characters reminding him
> constantly that he is on "governmental business" (8.17).

I did quote enough text, see p. 22, 23, 29, 30. You chose not to answer to
that. I'm not going to repeat it.

> In Chapter 3 we've
> seen evidence of Zoyd's complicity in the snitch culture, beginning back
in
> the mid-60s,

I disagree that eating peanut butter or smoking dope paid with snitch money
is complicity already. It's hippieish laziness only.

< we've seen Hector's act of "kindness" (27.17) in warning Zoyd
> about what was about to happen to Frenesi,

He's only "kind" because he wants something.

Why should Zoyd be interested in Frenesi anymore:

"I got no problem staying out of the way, 'specially anybody she's runnin'
with, and good luck yourself, Pal." (31)

Zoyd wants to get rid of Hector.

> and we've also seen that the
> whole deal with Zoyd's crazy act, the media circus, and the connections
with
> both Hector and Ralph Wayvone, have been orchestrated by Van Meter, who is
> Zoyd's "partner" (8.21).

So Van Meter is a snitch, not Zoyd. They're friends and musical partners,
not partners in the snitch business.

>
> It's all there in the text.
>

Yes, I agree: "Each time Zoyd failed to inform on those people, Hector grew
furious." (24)

So Zoyd has repeatedly refused to inform Hector, even if the dealers had
sold him parsley or have lied about the quality/quantity of the contraband.
Are we told about a single case where he did it? Fact is you cannot present
a single line of text showing Zoyd as a snitch, not a single case where he
has betrayed someone for money or for revenge.

In my opinion your interpretation is very stretched.

Otto

> best
>
>
> > And the way the
> > nonconformist young Americans have been treated in the late
> > sixties/seventies showed a dangerous track America was -- and is
still --
> > on. As Burket says about the "war on drugs:"
> >
> > "In Vineland, the effectiveness of the State in foreclosing resistance
to
> > the law as a viable possibility is made more effective by the fact that
in
> > the "War on Drugs," as in McCarthy's Red hunting, to which it is
paralleled
> > in the novel, evidence of "crimes" is easily manufactured to create the
> > crimes, the commission of which can then be used to justify the arrest
of
> > anyone whom the agent of the law wishes to arrest, as in the planting of
a
> > monstrous block of marijuana in Zoyd's house (a block so big that it
cannot
> > even fit through the doors). But the "War on Drugs" has an added
advantage
> > over McCarthy because it is effectively depoliticized. There can be no
> > organized resistance or appeals to law by "druggies," unlike leftists,
> > because drugs, as inanimate objects, are an easy "evil" to construct,
not to
> > mention lacking in constitutional protections, unlike political beliefs
and
> > speech. But Pynchon understands these two "wars" to be fundamentally the
> > same. The "War on Drugs" evolves out of, and is an extension of, the
> > crackdown on radicals in the 1960s (which in turn is an extension of
similar
> > practices in the 1930s) because it is an easier "war" to wage; drug
users
> > are an easier and more pervasive "Other" to create and demonize. It is
> > easier to produce generalized sentiments of hostility toward the
"criminal"
> > than the political dissident, and thus to produce affirmative sentiments
> > toward law enforcement and consent for its escalating use of force to
fight
> > this "war." (...) The "War on Drugs," is still in full swing."
> > http://www.law.utexas.edu/lpop/etext/okla/burket24.htm
> >
> > "There can be no organized resistance (...)."
> >
> > So how could Zoyd challenge or resist the state? Only way to get out of
all
> > this would have been to move to Canada or Mexico like a draft resister.
The
> > dilemma Brock puts him in if he wants to stay free and keep his child is
the
> > heart of the novel. As I've said before the deal between BV and Zoyd is
> > orwellian, it's Zoyd's "Room 101." Zoyd has no choice. BV and Hector may
be
> > very different in detail (BV has got much more power) but basically
they're
> > both presented as human rats, even if Hector regains his humanity in the
> > course of the novel. His claim "It's a free country" is as ridiculous as
> > Zoyd's window jump.