VLVL2(3): Religion in Vineland (was You, Hector)

[Tim Strzechowski]

Dave, I'm fascinated by some of the religious suggestions you've focused on
in your annotations so far, something that I never really noticed before in
the novel.  In fact, I wonder if some of these phrases and suggestions were
present in the first two chapters, and I/we just didn't notice them before.

I'm curious: does anyone on the List have a religious "reading" of Vineland
up to this point?  That is, do any of the characters in the novel have
biblical parallels to further enhance the author's use of such phrases as
"who was saved?" and "beg pardon" and the like?  While Pynchon frequently
equates the rocket with God in GR, does religion, or religous belief, or
faith vs. free will (in a religious sense), etc. seem to play a role in the
text so far?  Or rather, why does Pynchon use phrases of biblical origin in
this particular chapter, in this particular conversation?

Tim S.


Dave Monroe:

>    "'Beg pardon?'
>    "'One OD'd on the line at Tommy's waitin for a
> burger, one got into some words in a parkin lot with
> the wrong gentleman, one took a tumble in a faraway
> land, so on, more 'n half of 'em currently on the run,
> and you so far around the bend you don't even see it,
> that's what's become of your happy household, you'd've
> done better up against the SWAT team.  Just in the
> privacy of your thotz, Zoyd.  As a exercise, li'l
> kinda Zen meditation.  'Who was saved?'
>    "'You, Hector.'
>    "'Ay se va, go on, braek your old compinche's
> heart.  Here I thought you knew everything, it turns
> out you don't know shit.'  Grinning--a stretched and
> terrible face.  It was the closest Hector got to
> feeling sorry for himself, this suggestion he liked to
> put out that among the fallen, he had fallen further
> than most, not in distance alone but also in the
> quality of descent having begun long ago concentrated
> and graceful as a sky diver but--the tostada procedure
> was minor evidence--he growing less professional the
> longer he fell, while his skills as a field man
> depreciated."  (VL, Ch. 3, p. 29)
>
>
> "Beg pardon?"
>
> And one of the malefactors that were hanged railed on
> him, saying, Art not thou the Christ? save thyself and
> us. But the other answered, and rebuking him said,
> Dost thou not even fear God, seeing thou art in the
> same condemnation? And we indeed justly; for we
> receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath
> done nothing amiss. And he said, Jesus, remember me
> when thou comest in thy kingdom. And he said unto him,
> Verily I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with me
> in Paradise.
>
> http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/luke-asv.html
>
>