VLVL 4: War, politics and love

[Otto]

----- Original Message -----
From: "jbor" <jbor at bigpond.com>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Thursday, August 28, 2003 10:46 PM
Subject: Re: VLVL 4: War, politics and love


> >> Which I guess puts quite a different spin on why they might've actively
> >> "erased" their "trail since the war" (35.25-7). It now seems likely to
me
> >> that RC and Moonpie were ashamed of the fact that he had served in
> > Vietnam,
> >> and had changed their names and tried to start life afresh when he
> > returned
> >> with the rest of the US troops in January 1973 after the Paris Peace
> > Accords
> >> were signed. So, more deceit, another sellout story.
>
> on 28/8/03 10:23 PM, Otto wrote:
>
> > I don't buy that. Official America hasn't been very nice to the
> > Nam-Veterans, so after their return many of them joined the
counterculture
> > (let their hair grow long) where they were greeted friendly. The
anti-war
> > movement wasn't hostile to the single soldier but to the government that
had
> > sent the poor guys into the Vietnam-quagmire.
> >
> > It's more likely that RC had deserted from the troops. That would be a
good
> > reason for a name-change.
>
> Then he wouldn't be labelled a "bush vet" (and I agree with Don that
"bush"
> is probably short for "ambush" rather than a description of hinterland
> country, which is more an Australian denotation of "bush" and which had
kept
> tripping me up). And the name change and covering of their tracks wouldn't
> have occurred "since the war" but "since he went AWOL".
>

I don't see the logic in this. If he went AWOL he has a damn good reason not
to tell this to anybody.

> Arguments about the Vietnam War aside (and I probably agree with most of
> what you say on the subject above), I'm interested in what's going on in
> Pynchon's text. I think you can read this detail about RC and Moonpie as a
> sellout in one of two ways. Either RC sold out on the '60s by going to
fight
> in Vietnam and not becoming a conscientious objector like many of the
> anti-War counter-culture boys did,

Only if he had went to Nam deliberately, or, which is more likely, he'd been
sent there without thinking too much in advance, then saw what was really
going on (contrary to the lies spread by the media) and began making up his
mind.

> or he sells out on the rest of the troops
> he fought beside by returning and changing his name and trying
> to hide the fact that he *was* a soldier in Vietnam.

That's no sell-out but a personal decision not to kill innocent Asian
villagers anymore, stop being part of a genocide I would accept as very
honorable.

>The point remains that RC and
> Moonpie *have* changed their names and "erased" their "trail" since the
war.
> One way or another they are trying to cover up their identities, their
past;
> they are ashamed of what RC had been. It's the way Pynchon depicts their
> consciousness of having sold out -- either way -- which is interesting in
a
> thematic sense.
>

I still don't see the reason for shame in this.

> I don't buy Terrance's claim that "WORK" is the only theme in the novel. I
> think there are many themes and details in the book worth discussing.

What I like about Terrance's claim is that the counterculture found itself
in a position to deal with the fact that every single member of the
anti-capitalist movement had to look for ways to make at least some money
after the "revolution" had failed.

> I do
> think the later labour stuff from the '30s and the Hollywood blacklist era
> is interesting, but I think that the description of characters' work in
> these early chapters is a pretty standard way of introducing them, and
that
> it's used by Pynchon structurally to get characters from one meeting to
> another and to introduce a range of locales.
>

I agree.

> Another interesting thing in this chapter is the way that just about
> everyone seems to be busy snitching on everyone else. Van Meter manages to
> locate Zoyd yet again, even though he's almost hiding; everywhere Zoyd goe
s
> people jump for the phone to dob him in to Brock Vond (it's not just his
> paranoia); Zoyd calls Doc Deeply to come and recapture Hector; and then at
> the pizza joint Doc Deeply comes in and high-fives and thanks the owner,
> Baba Havabanada. (Which, by the way, is another really dumb name.)
>
> best

Zoyd's "jobs" are part of the old network that still works in 1984. The
warning he receives from Blood is a friendly gesture.

Zoyd's call to Doc Deeply is pure self-defense.

And Baba Havabanada is exploiting fourteen years old kids and sells pizza
that shouldn't carry that name. I'd prefer the pizza from "Mason & Dixon" to
this "slowest fast food in the region" (note the typical pynchonian
combination of opposites).

Otto

(Yogi Lapsang Souchong)
http://www.stashtea.com/w-050023.htm