VLVL Ditzah

[Bandwraith at aol.com]

In a message dated 12/31/03 5:51:05 PM, jbor at bigpond.com writes:

<< 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.) >>

There is nothing in the text to suggest "spoilt rich kids...slumming it."
Nothing about what their upbringing might have been like, except that
it involved apartment living and neighbors with whom they had to deal.

And despite the ethnic and sexist implications of your post,
Ditzah and Zipi happened to be talented:

    To watch them at work was to enjoy unthinking
    exhibitions of grace. (197)

Surely, just because they were talented Jewish females from NYC, which
they loved, doesn't mean they were rich, btw. If anything, the work
Pynchon portrays them at, along with the rest of the rest of 24fps
crew, is just what he longed for in the SL intro. Certainly Prairie, as
you yourself suggested in an earlier post, was moved beyond her
standard tubal memories of the dick waving bead wearing hipsters out
for a lark.

All of which is secondary to my assertion that VL has a strong
feminist theme running through it, but which has apparently
rubbed some of you the wrong way. That in itself suggests
that an exploration of the real and invisible force fields between
the various couples presented in the text might be a worthwhile
endeavor. 

respectfully