VLVL2(3): Hector's fall

[Tim Strzechowski]

Since we've noted before how Pynchon's narrative voice shifts from that of
3rd person omniscient to 3rd person limited, etc., often in the space of a
paragraph or two, I think it's possible -- very likely, in fact -- that the
passage in question is conveying Hector's perception of himself.  For
example, the paragraph opens with a direct quotation from Hector and, using
Spanish terms, establishes a conversational intimacy with the speaker.
Later, the voice states "... and if they were waiting for him one time and
got in the first move, _ay muere_, too bad" (29.24-5).  Sandwiching the
passage in question between two sentences that clearly attempt to convey a
direct Hectorian pov adds to the likelihood that said passage is also part
of that pov.

If we read the passage that way (and I stress *if* here), Hector seemingly
views himself as one who has been victimized by the demands of his role as a
government agent.  Hector laments the gradual loss of that "samurai
condition" that once enabled him to handle similar situations with "his old
fighting talents," once possessing (but now having lost) that "perfect
edge."  He now feels "sorry for himself" because of his loss of
professionalism and the diminishment of his skills. In this way, I suppose,
Hector echoes the sentiments of Milton's Satan as he prowls the outskirts of
Eden in the opening lines of Book IV:

"O, thou that with surpassing glory crowned,
Look'st from thy sole dominion like the god
Of this new world [...] to thee I call,
But with no friendly voice, and add thy name
O sun, to tell thee how I hate thy beams
That bring to my remembrance from what state
I fell, how glorious once above thy sphere;
Till pride and worse ambition threw me down
Warring in heav'n against heav'n's matchless King [...]
Be then his love accursed, since love or hate,
To me alike, it deals eternal woe.
Nay cursed be thou; since his thy will
Chose freely what it now so justly rues.
Me miserable!  which way shall I fly
Infinite wrath, and infinite despair?
Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell;
And in the lowest deep a lower deep
Still threat'ning to devour me opens wide,
To which the hell I suffer seems a heav'n." (Book IV, lines 32 - 78)

In these passages, both Hector and Milton's Satan lament the loss of a
greater condition they once possessed, and both are certainly aware of the
extent to which they have fallen, and the current status of their fallen
conditions. For Satan, this awareness is part of his tragic condition
because he believes he can still somehow recover part of his lost greater
condition (albeit through action which he acknowledges as "evil" and
"hateful").  Hector, on the other hand, seems to accept his diminished
skills and condition as a natural result of "all these identical-looking
beach pads beginning to blend together" (24) and, despite that awareness,
continues in to believe that he can still convince Zoyd of his hippie
idealism and failed Sixties revolution-era mindset.  Hector, like Satan in
this context, has "advanced self-hatred" which fuels his actions and, as a
result, urges him toward the realm of "Tragic."

This alone, of course, doesn't make him a tragic figure.  It's the other
qualities -- especially the capacity for goodness -- that, for me at least,
is still missing.

BUT, is this the condition that makes him Satanic tempter to the Zoyd Jesus
figure?

Tim



> Good question, depends on just whom you (more or less)
> attribute the following to, I suppose ...
>
> "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)
>
> Of course, Pynchon wrote it, but whether or not it's
> an authorial, authoritative comment is another thing
> entirely.  I tend to read this as more or less such,
> as a comment on Hector, and more How He Is than How
> Zoyd Sees Him.  "Put[ting] out that among the fallen,
> he had fallen further than most, not in distance alone
> but also in the quality of descent" et al.   Which, as
> Wm. Loman demonstrtes, need not be very far.  But a
> description of how Hector sees himself, rather tahn
> Hector seeing himself, which might be another thing
> entirely.  Constructed in mythic terms,
> self-constructed in mythic terms, even, but not
> necessarily mythic himself?  Something like that.
> Seems to me that this whole "Who was saved?" bit is
> Important ...
>
> --- Tim Strzechowski <dedalus204 at comcast.net> wrote:
> >
> > Is his "fall" "mythologized"?  By whom?  Hector?
> > Pynchon?
>
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