VLVL Ditzah

[jbor]

Note also the description of the two sisters' NYC origins and their "Jewish
princess" attitudes towards California (196-7, and cf. Rachel Owlglass and
Esther in _V._). Like so many of the student "revolutionaries" of the '60s
Ditzah and Zipi were in fact spoilt little rich kids. Rebelling against
their upbringing, slumming it, out for a bit of a lark. (And also cf.
Pynchon's comments in the 1984 'Intro' to _SL_ about the "real, invisible
class force fields in the way of communication" between blue collar workers
and college kids in the '60s, and of which thesis _Vineland_ forms, in large
part, literary amplification.)

> None of these alternatives are mentioned in the text. What it does say,
> however, is that she has a half-hour commute to "work", she keeps a flashy
> vintage car, she lives comfortably on the "high-rent side of Ventura
> Boulevard" (and the implication of the word "solvent" is that she owns the
> house and car), and she dresses up and acts like "your average suburban
> mom": she's not "down and out in LA" by any stretch of the imagination.
> Nothing intrinsically wrong with any of it, of course; but the immediate
> context which Pynchon has constructed with his narrative is that it's now
> 1984 under Reagan and Ditzah's no longer dressing up as an "anarchist
> bomber" as she did back in the late '60s, and she's no longer politically
> engaged as she once was, or pretended to be. And neither, for that matter,
> is DL, if she ever was.
> 
> But there's no evidence in the text to suggest that DL has kept in touch
> with Ditzah or that she knew she was kids-free for the summer. In fact, it's
> insinuated at a couple of points that DL and Ditzah haven't seen the film
> footage in a long time, perhaps since the '60s in DL's case (196.11,
> 199.27), and the reunion actually seems as though it's a one-off. All DL did
> know is that Ditzah had the film. She could as easily have looked her up in
> the phone book. I don't think the feminist spin holds much water either: any
> evidence?

Apparently not. 

best