VLVL2 (3): Hector Zuniga & Zoyd Wheeler (More or Less

[Terrance]

Richards wrote: 

>Hector is doubled with Ralph Wavyone in my opinion.

How so? 

Maybe all the characters in VL are  more or less ironically doubled? 

For example, Hector is now riding the wave of the Reagan Revolution. But
he's not riding point breaks and snugging the concrete pier pylons. He's
riding motor head muscle cars with a bottle of Battista's Revenge
between his thighs. Frenesi sees her own ignorance, her own virginity
and innocence in Hector's obsession with the camera and the Reagan
Revolution. Hector can't quite see his own virginity, but he can see
what self deluded fool like Zoyd can't. That no one was saved because
Zoyd acted like just about everyone else. Frenesi will double as
Hector's Mormon wife for a dance. And Prairie and Dl will melt into 
Frenesi's face even before DL puts on the the Frenesi disguise. Zoyd
will get a hair cut. He won't look like every other freak in Vineland
anymore, but like the average Joe. Now why the hell does Hector put on a
Zoot suit? 

What a riot!   


Pynchon "doublings" are 
  >Maybe you could say more about why and how Hector's Job (DEA) adds to
  >the Ironic Doubling.

> Yeah, it's the work. The ethnic stuff being tossed about here 
> is a red herring.

It's the work, the job, the deal, the funding, the racket .... and the
ethnic stuff is not red herring but actually one of the most interesting
ways in which P uses the ironic doublings.  Hector is simply the best
example and unlike a lot of the Italian and Japanese stuff the Mexican
stuff  is actually very funny. P simply puts more into Hector and the
facts are that P is pretty successful with Latinos from V. to VL. Guess
having lived in NYC and California, Mexico, didn't hurt. His Puerto
Rican Coackroaches remain my favorite characters. 

I'm not convinced that Hector's TV/Film stuff is all the man is made
on,  Hector is, as Justin says, ironically, the real deal. 



No, we don't know exactly how old Hector is , but he is older than both
Frenesi and Zoyd. He's having a mid-life/mid-career crisis. 






As far as his conversion, I think that he is not being honest with Zoyd
about his marriage. Hector, like the other cops in this book,  is driven
by some pretty personal stuff, money and family. I think the fact that
Hector's wife is a Mormon is also loaded with ironies. One of the being
that: 

Utah passed the first state anti-marijuana law. Mormons who had gone to
Mexico in 1910 returned smoking marijuana. It was outlawed at a result
of the Utah legislature enacting all Mormon religion prohibitions as
criminal laws.