VLVL 3 Zoyd and Hector

[pynchonoid]

--- gumbo at fuse.net wrote: 
> This *might* be true, but I'm not sure how you're
> measuring Hector's sincerety behind that ambiguous
> menace-and-benevolence pachuco schtick he affects. 

This whole scene where Hector confronts and pressures
Zoyd plays like a cheap teleplay, and they seem aware
of the roles they are playing -- it's very like the
way that Prairie and Zoyd (and others) mimic Tube
dialogue elsewhere in the novel, walking a very fine
line between self-aware irony and unconscious
repetition of the roles that the Tube prepares for its
devotees to play. Playing it like a scene from cop
show is part of what keeps Hector from going directly
for Zoyd's throat, I suspect.  It sets up the novel's
surprise ending, too -- instead of Hector and Brock
handcuffing Zoyd and leading him away into a future of
prison rape, as would happen in any self-respecting
cop show  -- read "Prison Bitch" at
<http://www.counterpunch.org/steve08012003.html> for a
harrowing look at the fate that might await Zoyd if
they succeed.

>The
> fact is Zoyd is a victim and Hector a predator. I
> also don't think the text is quite as silent on the
> question of who is on the side of the angels as you
> suggest it is. 

jbor offers, as in past group readings here, an
ideologically-driven interpretation that follows the
contours of the contemporary critique of 60's
subculture (and its heirs) wielded by right-wing
neo-cons in their ongoing Culture War.  To the degree
that jbor's biased comments stimulate discussion,
that's a good thing, but it's a wildly skewed view of
Vineland that's sustainable only by cutting and
pasting certain bits and pieces of the text to support
a pre-determined argument and ignoring what
contradicts this pre-scripted provocation, as we've
seen in jbor's interpretations of this novel, GR, and
the rest of Pynchon's work here in the past. 

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